The Hard Goodbye
Encyclopedia
"The Hard Goodbye" is the first Sin City
story. It was serialised, as "Sin City," in the comics anthology
Dark Horse Presents
by Dark Horse Comics
and named "The Hard Goodbye" in the trade paperbacks
. It was created by Frank Miller
, and led to a metaseries that has been adapted into a movie .
: 5th Anniversary Special (April 1991) and then in the continuing series Dark Horse Presents issues #51-62 and 5th Anniversary Special (June 1991–June 1992) and was written, drawn and lettered by Frank Miller
.
The original issues were edited by Randy Stradley, and Diana Schutz
is editor of the 2005 collected edition.
Fifth Anniversary Special and the debut of the Sin City
series appeared with part one of thirteen in The Hard Goodbye and only eight pages long.
The Story starts when Marv
is approached by Goldie in Kadie's Bar. They end up sleeping together in a hotel, but three hours later, Marv wakes to find Goldie dead. He gets ready and tries to remember what had happened that night when he was drunk. The next thing he hears are the police sirens which leads him to believe that someone else also knows about the death of Goldie.
The Police are running up the stairs to the room Marv and the dead Goldie are located in. Though the cops are more like SWAT with body armour and shields, they only use them because of Basin City's high crime rate. He takes his medicine and the Police knock at the door, he bashes the door down, knocking over two cops, and as they are attempting to shoot him he jumps down the gap in the middle of the winding stairs, grabbing a banister and swinging himself into a corridor and runs and jumps out the window. Luckily he lands into a huge pile of stuffed garbage bags, but a cop car is approaching and Marv jumps onto the hood, breaks the window with a kick, gets the cops out the car and drives it to and into the river, while doing so swearing to avenge Goldie's murder.
Issue #52 occurring seconds after Episode Two and also Part Three of Thirteen and 15 pages long.
Marv, knowing the cops will be waiting for him to re-surface, swims into a giant pipe and surfaces in the sewers, climbs out through a manhole
and sneaks through the city, avoiding cops, until he reaches Lucille, his parole officer's apartment. He breaks in and waits until the awake and wary Lucille finds him. He tells her everything that happened while Lucille gives him a fresh supply of medicine. Marv then tells her what he's going to do before running out to his Mom's house to get Gladys, his first gun, named after the toughest nun at his school, but his Mother catches him. She tells him that people were looking for him and Marv starts to tell his Mom what happened.
Issue #53 occurring probably the same night as Episode Three, Part Four of Thirteen and eight pages long.
After leaving his mother's, Marv thinks about how none of it fits together and why anyone would want to kill Goldie while walking down an alley back to Kadie's Bar. He knocks out a bouncer who refuses to let him in and is greeted by Kadie who tells him the bouncer is new (Marv receives free drinks from the bar for protecting the girls there from violence). Nancy Callahan
is dancing and he finds Weevil, and threatens him into spreading the word that Marv has been hanging around bars mourning Goldie's death and gives him cash for it. He is then offered a drink by Shellie.
Issue #54 occurring five or ten minutes after the end of Episode Four, Part Five of Thirteen and nine pages long.
Marv
watches Nancy Callahan
dance and then two hitmen, one with a gun, escort him out of the bar. Marv takes it as a joke, saying one of them has a nice coat, and goes with them into the alley. He then knocks one of them out and steals his gun then shoots the other one's hand. He threatens one for his coat, one called Stan then shoots him in the chest, and asks him who sent them because he knows they didn't kill Goldie. Marv has to resort to also blowing the man's testicles off before he admits that Telly Stern sent them. Marv then shoots him through the head, killing him. He thinks he sees Goldie but shrugs it off as a delusion
.
Issue #55 occurring the same night or early the next morning after Episode Five, Part Six of Thirteen and eight pages long.
Marv tries to sleep but he can't so he decides to follow up his leads and while trying to get information kills three people, punching one to death, drowning another in a toilet, and bashing another's head off by holding his face to the road while driving. Then he goes to church to confess, in the confession stand confessing about his murders and threatens The Priest to tell him about the other confessions and if he knows anything. The priest says "Roark" (referring to Cardinal Roark). Marv doesn't believe him and threatens to kill him. The panicked priest tells him that if he doesn't believe him he should check out The Farm at North cross and Lennox. The Priest is now angry and asks him if "that corpse of a slut" (referring to Goldie) is worth dying for. Marv says "worth dying for, worth killing for, worth going to hell
for" and kills him, stealing his car keys. He leaves the church saying "Amen".
Issue #56 occurring two to five minutes after Episode Six, Part Seven of Thirteen and eight pages long.
Marv steals the priest's Mercedes
but as he is opening the car door, he hears a loud approaching car and pulls out his gun but then hesitates when he thinks it's Goldie and gets ran over, sending him from the bonnet to the boot of the car, the car turns round quickly and runs him over again, sending him from the bonnet onto the road, as he repeats 'Goldie?' and then runs him over for a third time sending him flying in the air and the person in the car shoots him three times as he moans in pain and leaves him for dead. Two minutes later, after Marv recovers, he thinks that it can't be Goldie and takes more medicine while driving away.
Issue #57 occurring anywhere between ten to sixty minutes (depending on how far away North Cross and Lennox is from the Church and how fast Marv was going) after Episode Seven, Part Eight of Thirteen and ten pages long.
Marv leaves the priest's Mercedes
in a diner parking lot about two miles from the Farm. He travels through the woods until he reaches it. He is approached by a wolf and Marv tries to calm it down but the wolf bites him and he hits it and smells human blood in its breath which makes him wonder who its owner is. He then tries to see what's buried as a man approaches behind him. He finds a bone and a high heel shoe but still doesn't know there's no one there until he sees a pair of Chuck Taylor All-Stars
as he turns around. The man kicks him then kicks him off a fence, and kicks him again then his hands go numb and then the man scratches Marv's eyes until he can't see. He (Marv) thinks to himself during this that nobody is that quiet except the person who sneaked into the hotel room two nights ago and realizes the man attacking him killed Goldie and exclaims "It was you, you killed Goldie!", just as the man knocks Marv out with a sledgehammer
.
Issue #58 occurring a few hours, possibly, after Episode Eight, Part Nine of Thirteen and eight pages long.
Marv
is lying somewhere, and at first thinks he has died, as he sees a bright white light. After diving toward the light, he finds himself lying on the floor of some sort of tiled jail. Upon opening his eyes, the first thing he sees is a rose, a tattoo on someone's face, and realizes it is a disembodied head, pinned on a wall along with many more. Then he sees a naked Lucille curled up in the corner, in shock. She keeps on saying that "he" eats people and gives the wolf the scraps. She continues about how he cooks them, and then tells Marv that "he" severed her arm and ate it right in front of her, making her watch. Marv keeps her warm by putting his coat over her. She screams and cries before telling Marv
that Goldie is a high-class hooker. Lucille gives details about what happened to her and then Marv
, at the bars on of the walls, where he can see outside, hears a V-8 pull up and hears 'Come quick, Kevin.' He now knows the killer's name is Kevin and says 'see you soon Kevin...'.
Issue #59 occurring a few seconds or minutes after Episode Nine, Part Ten of Thirteen and twenty-one pages long.
Loud noises echo from The Farm as Marv
is trying to ram down the locked steel metal door by ramming into it head first, hurting himself as Lucille watches. After eleven brutal attempts, the door finally breaks. He keeps Lucille close, hearing helicopter rotors above as they run along the premesis. Along the way, Marv finds Gladys, his gun. A full squadren of police, including 'The Painted Cop' hop out of the chopper as it lands. Lucille and Marv dive into a nearby bush, out of sight. Marv readies his weapon, however Lucille, refusing the idea of him getting the both of them killed, knocks him unconscious with a large rock. She runs over to the squad to explain that they are unarmed. They demand Marv's location before she is brutally shot to death. Marv, enraged, comes at them with a hatchet. Marv takes multiple bullets, but manages to subdue the entire squadren, leaving the chief standing. He states that it's a fine coat he's wearing, before killing him.
Issue #60 occurring the same night or the morning or day after Episode Ten, Part Eleven of Thirteen and twelve pages long.
Marv
is walking along a bridge working out that it was Roark because even the cop said it was and he realizes that Goldie was just looking for someone who could protect her because she knew someone was coming for her and she found Marv. He knows he might have to die for her, and he doesn't care. But first he needs to find out the connection between Goldie, Cardinal Roark and Kevin, then he'll know what to do. Then he begins to talk about Cardinal Roark, or by his full name Patrick Henry Roark and tells us that The Roark Family has owned Sin City for a long time and their money has grown from millions to billions. He is at a statue of Cardinal Roark as he is thinking that Roark is the most powerful man in the state and how ironic it is that he's going to get killed just over some dead hooker as Marv shoots the giant stone statue in the middle of the head. He then suddenly wonders if he's wrong, sometimes he gets confused and wonder's if that's it and with Lucille dead, he can't get his medicine. He then wonders if he's turned into a maniac, a psycho killer. He then knows that he's got to know for sure. Five to ten minutes later he's in Old Town, asking around for Goldie. Then someone shoots him and he looks to see who it is, thinks it's Goldie again, and is shot once more, falling to the floor unconscious.
Issue #61 occurring five to sixty minutes after Episode Eleven, Part Twelve of Thirteen and eight pages long.
Marv
wakes up strapped to a chair and sees who he believes to be Goldie and thinks he's dreaming so he's saying to her that he is probably lying in a gutter talking to himself. Then the woman pistol-whips him, he then realizes more girls are around him, The Girls of Old Town
, one of them says 'Hit him harder, Wendy'. Marv laughs the strikes off and tells her how to pistol-whip correctly, then asking why she was called Wendy and she says that it's her name, AND that Goldie was her twin sister. Then Wendy asks Marv what happened to her and the other six girls (who were killed by Kevin.) And Marv says that no-one would go near an ugly mug like his, he continues elaborating by saying he was supposed to protect Goldie but failed because he was too drunk, and that he's been killing his way to the truth ever since. The four girls realize they were wrong and Marv breaks out of the ropes with ease. He sat there and took it so he could talk some sense into them.
Issue #62, occurring five to sixty minutes after Episode Twelve, the final part, the last episode in The Hard Goodbye series and forty-eight pages long.
In a room that The Old Town Girls gave him, Marv
is thinking about fear, and about dying. He throws up a couple of times, then gets his coat, Gladys (his gun) and the hatchet from the farm. Gail gives him a pair of handcuffs. In the car with Wendy, he keeps on reminding himself that she's not Goldie. Wendy is speeding with the same car she previously drove over Marv. As they drive, Wendy informs Marv that Goldie and the other dead girls worked the clergy, giving Marv a huge piece of the puzzle as to how Goldie and Roark are connected. After a night sleeping in the same room, Marv keeps getting confused, thinking she's Goldie. They buy rubber tubing, gas, a saw, razor wire and gloves. They stop the car near The Farm and Marv makes Wendy stay at the car. He stretches the razor wire out with the gloves, primes a petrol bomb, and throws it through a window to flush out Kevin. Marv then catches his attention with some gun-shots, and watches Kevin run toward the razor wire and clear it as he puts one cuff of the hand-cuffs on and gets his hatchet in his other hand. They fight, Marv losing his hatchet. He continues to fight on, kicking and punching. He gets close, but Kevin again scratches his eyes out. With his eyes scratched up, Marv manages to put the free cuff on Kevin's wrist. After he gets a kick, Marv punches Kevin and knocks him out. Wendy is behind him; he tells her to go, but she wants to kill him. Marv knocks her out and takes her back to the car, which was hard for him as he doesn't like to hurt women.
"Half an hour later." Marv sits looking at Kevin, whose legs and arms he's cut off. He feeds the rest of Kevin to the wolf, and then saws off Kevin's head. Marv is surprised because Kevin never made a sound, just staring and smiling. Marv takes Wendy to Nancy Callahan
and tells Nancy to take Wendy out of town, fearing that Wendy will be killed. He reaches Cardinal Roark's mansion. He enters via the main gates where he kills Corporal Rivera and others until he reaches Roark's room. Roark tells him Kevin had the voice of angels and eating people gave him religious satisfaction, saying that Kevin felt the touch of God as he did. He knew the police were looking for the killers and he murdered Goldie so they'd think it was Marv. Knowing why Marv came, he asks if killing a defenseless old man will make him feel any better. Marv has to admit that it will not... but "everything up to the killing is gonna be a gas." He kills Roark slowly, in a gruesome fashion, and when the police see him he gets rinsed with sub-machine gun fire. He comes to on the operating table and is disappointed the cops didn't shoot his head, "and enough times to make sure." He is charged with all of the murders he committed and framed for those he didn't (The Girls of Old Town
.) He is beaten for a confession and told by an attorney that, without a confession, they'll kill his mother. Marv signs the confession, breaking the attorney's arm in three places in the process. They decide to execute him via electric chair. In prison his only visitor is Wendy, who pretends she's Goldie and kisses Marv.
"Eighteen months later." Marv is in the electric chair, and interrupts a priestly benediction with "I ain't got all night!" Juicer pulls the switch. The first surge of the electric chair does not kill Marv; after the surge, he utters his last words, "Is that the best you can do, you pansies?" After the second surge, the executioner announces, simply: "He's gone."
named Sin City in 1992, and then subtitled The Hard Goodbye in January 1993 featuring several different cover designs over its multiple printings/titles. The series was reprinted in smaller sized digest
-trades to tie-into the film, with covers designed by Chip Kidd
.
. Actor Mickey Rourke
played the role of Marv to critical acclaim.
Sin City
Sin City is the title for a series of neo-noir comics by Frank Miller. The first story originally appeared in "Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special" , and continued in Dark Horse Presents #51–62 from May 1991 to June 1992, under the title of Sin City, serialized in thirteen parts. Several...
story. It was serialised, as "Sin City," in the comics anthology
Comics anthology
Comics anthologies collect works in the medium of comics that are too short for standalone publication.- U.S. :- UK :British comics have a long tradition publishing comics anthologies, often weekly...
Dark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
by Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
and named "The Hard Goodbye" in the trade paperbacks
Trade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
. It was created by Frank Miller
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
, and led to a metaseries that has been adapted into a movie .
Publication history
The comic was first published as "Sin City" in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
: 5th Anniversary Special (April 1991) and then in the continuing series Dark Horse Presents issues #51-62 and 5th Anniversary Special (June 1991–June 1992) and was written, drawn and lettered by Frank Miller
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
.
The original issues were edited by Randy Stradley, and Diana Schutz
Diana Schutz
Diana Schutz is a comic book editor, most notable as editor in chief of Comico during its peak years and for her continuing tenure at Dark Horse Comics, for whom she has worked since 1990...
is editor of the 2005 collected edition.
Episode One
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Fifth Anniversary Special and the debut of the Sin City
Sin City
Sin City is the title for a series of neo-noir comics by Frank Miller. The first story originally appeared in "Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special" , and continued in Dark Horse Presents #51–62 from May 1991 to June 1992, under the title of Sin City, serialized in thirteen parts. Several...
series appeared with part one of thirteen in The Hard Goodbye and only eight pages long.
The Story starts when Marv
Marv
Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...
is approached by Goldie in Kadie's Bar. They end up sleeping together in a hotel, but three hours later, Marv wakes to find Goldie dead. He gets ready and tries to remember what had happened that night when he was drunk. The next thing he hears are the police sirens which leads him to believe that someone else also knows about the death of Goldie.
Episode Two
Published in Dark Horse Presents Issue #51 occurring only a minute after Episode One and Part Two of Thirteen and 12 pages long.The Police are running up the stairs to the room Marv and the dead Goldie are located in. Though the cops are more like SWAT with body armour and shields, they only use them because of Basin City's high crime rate. He takes his medicine and the Police knock at the door, he bashes the door down, knocking over two cops, and as they are attempting to shoot him he jumps down the gap in the middle of the winding stairs, grabbing a banister and swinging himself into a corridor and runs and jumps out the window. Luckily he lands into a huge pile of stuffed garbage bags, but a cop car is approaching and Marv jumps onto the hood, breaks the window with a kick, gets the cops out the car and drives it to and into the river, while doing so swearing to avenge Goldie's murder.
Episode Three
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #52 occurring seconds after Episode Two and also Part Three of Thirteen and 15 pages long.
Marv, knowing the cops will be waiting for him to re-surface, swims into a giant pipe and surfaces in the sewers, climbs out through a manhole
Manhole
A manhole is an opening used to gain access to sewers or other underground structures, usually for maintenance.Manhole may also refer to:* Manhole , a metal band from Los Angeles* The Manhole, a computer game...
and sneaks through the city, avoiding cops, until he reaches Lucille, his parole officer's apartment. He breaks in and waits until the awake and wary Lucille finds him. He tells her everything that happened while Lucille gives him a fresh supply of medicine. Marv then tells her what he's going to do before running out to his Mom's house to get Gladys, his first gun, named after the toughest nun at his school, but his Mother catches him. She tells him that people were looking for him and Marv starts to tell his Mom what happened.
Episode Four
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #53 occurring probably the same night as Episode Three, Part Four of Thirteen and eight pages long.
After leaving his mother's, Marv thinks about how none of it fits together and why anyone would want to kill Goldie while walking down an alley back to Kadie's Bar. He knocks out a bouncer who refuses to let him in and is greeted by Kadie who tells him the bouncer is new (Marv receives free drinks from the bar for protecting the girls there from violence). Nancy Callahan
Nancy Callahan
Nancy Callahan is a fictional character from the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. She first appeared in The Hard Goodbye before becoming a more prominent character in later stories, most notably That Yellow Bastard....
is dancing and he finds Weevil, and threatens him into spreading the word that Marv has been hanging around bars mourning Goldie's death and gives him cash for it. He is then offered a drink by Shellie.
Episode Five
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #54 occurring five or ten minutes after the end of Episode Four, Part Five of Thirteen and nine pages long.
Marv
Marv
Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...
watches Nancy Callahan
Nancy Callahan
Nancy Callahan is a fictional character from the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. She first appeared in The Hard Goodbye before becoming a more prominent character in later stories, most notably That Yellow Bastard....
dance and then two hitmen, one with a gun, escort him out of the bar. Marv takes it as a joke, saying one of them has a nice coat, and goes with them into the alley. He then knocks one of them out and steals his gun then shoots the other one's hand. He threatens one for his coat, one called Stan then shoots him in the chest, and asks him who sent them because he knows they didn't kill Goldie. Marv has to resort to also blowing the man's testicles off before he admits that Telly Stern sent them. Marv then shoots him through the head, killing him. He thinks he sees Goldie but shrugs it off as a delusion
Delusion
A delusion is a false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence. Unlike hallucinations, delusions are always pathological...
.
Episode Six
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #55 occurring the same night or early the next morning after Episode Five, Part Six of Thirteen and eight pages long.
Marv tries to sleep but he can't so he decides to follow up his leads and while trying to get information kills three people, punching one to death, drowning another in a toilet, and bashing another's head off by holding his face to the road while driving. Then he goes to church to confess, in the confession stand confessing about his murders and threatens The Priest to tell him about the other confessions and if he knows anything. The priest says "Roark" (referring to Cardinal Roark). Marv doesn't believe him and threatens to kill him. The panicked priest tells him that if he doesn't believe him he should check out The Farm at North cross and Lennox. The Priest is now angry and asks him if "that corpse of a slut" (referring to Goldie) is worth dying for. Marv says "worth dying for, worth killing for, worth going to hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
for" and kills him, stealing his car keys. He leaves the church saying "Amen".
Episode Seven
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #56 occurring two to five minutes after Episode Six, Part Seven of Thirteen and eight pages long.
Marv steals the priest's Mercedes
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
but as he is opening the car door, he hears a loud approaching car and pulls out his gun but then hesitates when he thinks it's Goldie and gets ran over, sending him from the bonnet to the boot of the car, the car turns round quickly and runs him over again, sending him from the bonnet onto the road, as he repeats 'Goldie?' and then runs him over for a third time sending him flying in the air and the person in the car shoots him three times as he moans in pain and leaves him for dead. Two minutes later, after Marv recovers, he thinks that it can't be Goldie and takes more medicine while driving away.
Episode Eight
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #57 occurring anywhere between ten to sixty minutes (depending on how far away North Cross and Lennox is from the Church and how fast Marv was going) after Episode Seven, Part Eight of Thirteen and ten pages long.
Marv leaves the priest's Mercedes
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
in a diner parking lot about two miles from the Farm. He travels through the woods until he reaches it. He is approached by a wolf and Marv tries to calm it down but the wolf bites him and he hits it and smells human blood in its breath which makes him wonder who its owner is. He then tries to see what's buried as a man approaches behind him. He finds a bone and a high heel shoe but still doesn't know there's no one there until he sees a pair of Chuck Taylor All-Stars
Chuck Taylor All-Stars
Chuck Taylor All Stars, or Converse All Stars, also referred to as "Chuck Taylors", "Converses", "All Stars", "Chucks" or "Cons", are canvas and rubber shoes produced by Converse. They were first produced in 1917 as the "All Star," Converse's attempt to capture the basketball shoe market...
as he turns around. The man kicks him then kicks him off a fence, and kicks him again then his hands go numb and then the man scratches Marv's eyes until he can't see. He (Marv) thinks to himself during this that nobody is that quiet except the person who sneaked into the hotel room two nights ago and realizes the man attacking him killed Goldie and exclaims "It was you, you killed Goldie!", just as the man knocks Marv out with a sledgehammer
Sledgehammer
A sledgehammer is a tool consisting of a large, flat head attached to a lever . The head is typically made of metal. The sledgehammer can apply more impulse than other hammers, due to its large size. Along with the mallet, it shares the ability to distribute force over a wide area...
.
Episode Nine
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #58 occurring a few hours, possibly, after Episode Eight, Part Nine of Thirteen and eight pages long.
Marv
Marv
Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...
is lying somewhere, and at first thinks he has died, as he sees a bright white light. After diving toward the light, he finds himself lying on the floor of some sort of tiled jail. Upon opening his eyes, the first thing he sees is a rose, a tattoo on someone's face, and realizes it is a disembodied head, pinned on a wall along with many more. Then he sees a naked Lucille curled up in the corner, in shock. She keeps on saying that "he" eats people and gives the wolf the scraps. She continues about how he cooks them, and then tells Marv that "he" severed her arm and ate it right in front of her, making her watch. Marv keeps her warm by putting his coat over her. She screams and cries before telling Marv
Marv
Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...
that Goldie is a high-class hooker. Lucille gives details about what happened to her and then Marv
Marv
Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...
, at the bars on of the walls, where he can see outside, hears a V-8 pull up and hears 'Come quick, Kevin.' He now knows the killer's name is Kevin and says 'see you soon Kevin...'.
Episode Ten
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #59 occurring a few seconds or minutes after Episode Nine, Part Ten of Thirteen and twenty-one pages long.
Loud noises echo from The Farm as Marv
Marv
Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...
is trying to ram down the locked steel metal door by ramming into it head first, hurting himself as Lucille watches. After eleven brutal attempts, the door finally breaks. He keeps Lucille close, hearing helicopter rotors above as they run along the premesis. Along the way, Marv finds Gladys, his gun. A full squadren of police, including 'The Painted Cop' hop out of the chopper as it lands. Lucille and Marv dive into a nearby bush, out of sight. Marv readies his weapon, however Lucille, refusing the idea of him getting the both of them killed, knocks him unconscious with a large rock. She runs over to the squad to explain that they are unarmed. They demand Marv's location before she is brutally shot to death. Marv, enraged, comes at them with a hatchet. Marv takes multiple bullets, but manages to subdue the entire squadren, leaving the chief standing. He states that it's a fine coat he's wearing, before killing him.
Episode Eleven
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #60 occurring the same night or the morning or day after Episode Ten, Part Eleven of Thirteen and twelve pages long.
Marv
Marv
Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...
is walking along a bridge working out that it was Roark because even the cop said it was and he realizes that Goldie was just looking for someone who could protect her because she knew someone was coming for her and she found Marv. He knows he might have to die for her, and he doesn't care. But first he needs to find out the connection between Goldie, Cardinal Roark and Kevin, then he'll know what to do. Then he begins to talk about Cardinal Roark, or by his full name Patrick Henry Roark and tells us that The Roark Family has owned Sin City for a long time and their money has grown from millions to billions. He is at a statue of Cardinal Roark as he is thinking that Roark is the most powerful man in the state and how ironic it is that he's going to get killed just over some dead hooker as Marv shoots the giant stone statue in the middle of the head. He then suddenly wonders if he's wrong, sometimes he gets confused and wonder's if that's it and with Lucille dead, he can't get his medicine. He then wonders if he's turned into a maniac, a psycho killer. He then knows that he's got to know for sure. Five to ten minutes later he's in Old Town, asking around for Goldie. Then someone shoots him and he looks to see who it is, thinks it's Goldie again, and is shot once more, falling to the floor unconscious.
Episode Twelve
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #61 occurring five to sixty minutes after Episode Eleven, Part Twelve of Thirteen and eight pages long.
Marv
Marv
Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...
wakes up strapped to a chair and sees who he believes to be Goldie and thinks he's dreaming so he's saying to her that he is probably lying in a gutter talking to himself. Then the woman pistol-whips him, he then realizes more girls are around him, The Girls of Old Town
The Girls of Old Town
The Girls of Old Town are a group of self-governing prostitutes in the fictional universe of Frank Miller's Sin City.During the days of the Gold Rush, when the town of Basin City had just been settled, the Roark family "imported" a large number of women from across the globe into the open and...
, one of them says 'Hit him harder, Wendy'. Marv laughs the strikes off and tells her how to pistol-whip correctly, then asking why she was called Wendy and she says that it's her name, AND that Goldie was her twin sister. Then Wendy asks Marv what happened to her and the other six girls (who were killed by Kevin.) And Marv says that no-one would go near an ugly mug like his, he continues elaborating by saying he was supposed to protect Goldie but failed because he was too drunk, and that he's been killing his way to the truth ever since. The four girls realize they were wrong and Marv breaks out of the ropes with ease. He sat there and took it so he could talk some sense into them.
Episode Thirteen
Published in Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Issue #62, occurring five to sixty minutes after Episode Twelve, the final part, the last episode in The Hard Goodbye series and forty-eight pages long.
In a room that The Old Town Girls gave him, Marv
Marv
Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...
is thinking about fear, and about dying. He throws up a couple of times, then gets his coat, Gladys (his gun) and the hatchet from the farm. Gail gives him a pair of handcuffs. In the car with Wendy, he keeps on reminding himself that she's not Goldie. Wendy is speeding with the same car she previously drove over Marv. As they drive, Wendy informs Marv that Goldie and the other dead girls worked the clergy, giving Marv a huge piece of the puzzle as to how Goldie and Roark are connected. After a night sleeping in the same room, Marv keeps getting confused, thinking she's Goldie. They buy rubber tubing, gas, a saw, razor wire and gloves. They stop the car near The Farm and Marv makes Wendy stay at the car. He stretches the razor wire out with the gloves, primes a petrol bomb, and throws it through a window to flush out Kevin. Marv then catches his attention with some gun-shots, and watches Kevin run toward the razor wire and clear it as he puts one cuff of the hand-cuffs on and gets his hatchet in his other hand. They fight, Marv losing his hatchet. He continues to fight on, kicking and punching. He gets close, but Kevin again scratches his eyes out. With his eyes scratched up, Marv manages to put the free cuff on Kevin's wrist. After he gets a kick, Marv punches Kevin and knocks him out. Wendy is behind him; he tells her to go, but she wants to kill him. Marv knocks her out and takes her back to the car, which was hard for him as he doesn't like to hurt women.
"Half an hour later." Marv sits looking at Kevin, whose legs and arms he's cut off. He feeds the rest of Kevin to the wolf, and then saws off Kevin's head. Marv is surprised because Kevin never made a sound, just staring and smiling. Marv takes Wendy to Nancy Callahan
Nancy Callahan
Nancy Callahan is a fictional character from the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. She first appeared in The Hard Goodbye before becoming a more prominent character in later stories, most notably That Yellow Bastard....
and tells Nancy to take Wendy out of town, fearing that Wendy will be killed. He reaches Cardinal Roark's mansion. He enters via the main gates where he kills Corporal Rivera and others until he reaches Roark's room. Roark tells him Kevin had the voice of angels and eating people gave him religious satisfaction, saying that Kevin felt the touch of God as he did. He knew the police were looking for the killers and he murdered Goldie so they'd think it was Marv. Knowing why Marv came, he asks if killing a defenseless old man will make him feel any better. Marv has to admit that it will not... but "everything up to the killing is gonna be a gas." He kills Roark slowly, in a gruesome fashion, and when the police see him he gets rinsed with sub-machine gun fire. He comes to on the operating table and is disappointed the cops didn't shoot his head, "and enough times to make sure." He is charged with all of the murders he committed and framed for those he didn't (The Girls of Old Town
The Girls of Old Town
The Girls of Old Town are a group of self-governing prostitutes in the fictional universe of Frank Miller's Sin City.During the days of the Gold Rush, when the town of Basin City had just been settled, the Roark family "imported" a large number of women from across the globe into the open and...
.) He is beaten for a confession and told by an attorney that, without a confession, they'll kill his mother. Marv signs the confession, breaking the attorney's arm in three places in the process. They decide to execute him via electric chair. In prison his only visitor is Wendy, who pretends she's Goldie and kisses Marv.
"Eighteen months later." Marv is in the electric chair, and interrupts a priestly benediction with "I ain't got all night!" Juicer pulls the switch. The first surge of the electric chair does not kill Marv; after the surge, he utters his last words, "Is that the best you can do, you pansies?" After the second surge, the executioner announces, simply: "He's gone."
Collected edition
It was collected as a trade paper-backTrade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
named Sin City in 1992, and then subtitled The Hard Goodbye in January 1993 featuring several different cover designs over its multiple printings/titles. The series was reprinted in smaller sized digest
Digest size
Digest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately 5½ x 8¼ inches, but can also be 5⅜ x 8⅜ inches and 5½ x 7½ inches. These sizes have evolved from the printing press operation end...
-trades to tie-into the film, with covers designed by Chip Kidd
Chip Kidd
Chip Kidd is an American author, editor, and graphic designer, best known for his book covers.- Early life :Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Kidd grew up in the Reading suburb of Shillington, strongly influenced by American popular culture...
.
Awards
The story has received a number of awards:- 1992:
- Nominated for "Best Single Issue or Story" Eisner AwardEisner AwardThe Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
- Frank Miller was nominated for "Best Writer/Artist or Writer/Artist Team" Eisner Award, for Sin City
- Frank Miller was nominated for "Best Artist" Eisner Award, for Sin City
- Nominated for "Best Single Issue or Story" Eisner Award
- 1993:
- Won "Best Graphic Album: Reprint (Modern Material)" Eisner Award
- Frank Miller won "Best Penciller/Inker, Black & White Publication" Eisner Award, for Sin City
- Frank Miller won "Best Writer/Artist" Eisner Award, for Sin City
- Nominated for "Best Serialized Story" Eisner Award, for Dark Horse Presents #58-62
- Frank Miller was nominated for "Best Writer" Eisner Award, for Sin City
Cinematic adaptation
In 2005, this was one of the stories adapted into the film Sin CitySin City (film)
Sin City, also known as Frank Miller's Sin City, is a 2005 crime thriller film written, produced and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez...
. Actor Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke
Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
played the role of Marv to critical acclaim.