There's a lot to take on board when you start reading Sin City. There's the shaggability of its protagonists, the professions of all the women, the uniformly corrupt...everyone, the dinosaurs, the unhealthy relationships. We can just about take all of those in our stride so we can get on with reading the silly, over-the-top stories. The most unbelievable part of all of it, though, might be the setting. Not all the film noir stuff we were just waffling on about, or the people who live there, or anything like that. We mean the actual city itself. How the heck does Basin City exist? How has it not collapsed into a wasteland, a ghost town? Everyone is corrupt, and wrapped up in their own business. Shouldn't the streets be strewn with rubbish from the lack of garbage men? Who works in the supermarkets? Does anybody eat? Then there's the actual geography of the place. Sin City is apparently located in the American west, as the arid desert surroundings, mountain ranges, lizards and palm trees will attest to. But then there's a whole section of woodland on one side, and a major river runs through the city, coming out to a grand waterfront on the other end. There's also the propensity for heavy, hardboiled downfalls of rain through which anti-heroes can walk and look tragic and awesome. Or sometimes snow, if Frank Miller's feeling festive. So it has the climates of about five different parts of the United States, is a mish-mash of a half-dozen different cities, and exists outside of any other, real place. But people make references to existing pop culture, the tar pits were inspired by Jurassic Park, and we never see anyone wearing sunglasses or even t-shirts. It's a surreal, bizarre environment that couldn't possibly exist, and yet it does. And it's full of murderous psychopaths who somehow manage an existence in between all the killing. And they've somebody not killed every single member of the population yet. We don't know. It's just Sin City. It's crazy, but we accept it for what it is.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
