The comic book medium is all about the sequential art, but then sometimes there is just one panel, one small image, that is so striking that it takes your breath away as soon as you see it, and lodges in your skull for the rest of your life.
The above panel by Frank Miller is one of those for me. His Sin City comics can be problematic as hell, but they also still look so beautiful. The black and white stark style brings all sorts of energy to the action, even as it remains moody and dark. His use of rain and smoke was incredible.
There are dozens of tiny little moments throughout the Sin City comics, but this panel from A Dame To Kill For still stands out. It's part of a cheesecake sequence where the femme fatale is taking a nude swim in the night, and is little more than glorification of the female body. It adds little to the plot, other than showing how this woman uses her whole body to seduce the unwary, but is an essential part of the story.
Look at the angle of this shot, the way the surface of the water is as invisible as bright colours. How do you even come up with the idea of looking it from this perspective, and then leaving the water as a blank void, only the trail of the body betraying the fact that she is not just floating in empty space.
More renowned comic scholars than me could undoubtedly point out that somebody far less famous in the western world did something like this earlier and better than Miller, but this is where I first saw this kind of ambition, and actual delivery on that ambition. It literally took me breath away when I first saw it, and it still does, not matter how many times I see it.
Because sometimes a single panel can feel like it's opening up whole new worlds for you, even if it's just somebody diving into a pool.
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