Frank Miller is just blogging like crazy these days. Which is great -- I wish everybody I ever wrote about had a blog, because it would make everything ten times easier and more interesting. No conjecture. Straight from the horse's mouth!

Today, Miller addressed the concerns and criticism directed at the first teaser for The Spirit, mainly centered on its resemblance to the eye-popping Sin City. "It only resembles Sin City in that I am its director, and, well, yes, I have my ways and my proclivities .... No, Sin City, that one's my own baby, folks, and it looks the way it does for its own reasons. The Spirit is, and will always be, Eisner's Spirit .... To drive the point home, The Spirit , despite any accidental impression left by that kickass teaser-trailer, is a full-color movie. Sin City - and I hope to make of it a movie trilogy all its own, come Hell and high water - is, visually, a playhouse for black and white."

And thus begins Hollywood's rediscovery of Golden Age comics. Variety reports that the Creative Artists Agency has landed the rights to Will Eisner's estate, enlisting the late comic book legend as a client.

Their plan is to take Eisner's large library of comic book titles and package them up as movie, television, and other media properties. Interest in all things Eisner has been heating up, due largely to Frank Miller's upcoming adaptation of The Spirit. (And probably due to Eisner and the Spirit always being ever present at San Diego ComicCon, which Hollywood increasingly takes over.)

Obviously, there's no word on what titles are being looked at first, or by whom. I'm curious how diehard Eisner fans will take this -- do they want his titles remaining undiscovered and unsullied by blockbuster movies? Or are they going to jump at the chance to see anything and everything adapted?

Frankly, I'm always happy if original content is being adapted over remaking the movies of the 1980's. I imagine all his noir work will be snapped up first -- and I would be none too sorry to see Lady Luck. Hawks of the Seas would be ten kinds of fun, but I am a sucker for swashbucklers. I hope someone looks at his serious graphic novels -- Contract with God, Family Matters, and The Name of the Game could all be brilliant in the right hands. It will be interesting to see where this deal goes.

Who is ... The Spirit? Gabriel Macht is The Spirit. That's right, Frank Miller has gone with a relative unknown to star in The Spirit, his adaptation of Will Eisner's classic comic. Macht actually made his feature film debut 27 years ago (and then took an 18-year hiatus to grow up), and he's been appearing in supporting roles just under the bill since 2001, but he's hardly a household name. TV fans may remember him from NBC's short-lived The Others and moviegoers should recognize him -- if not by name then by face -- from The Good Shepherd, Because I Said So and The Recruit. By the time The Spirit rolls out in 2009, though, Macht may be more familiar. Next year he stars opposite Kate Beckinsdale in Dominic Sena's Whiteout. The actor didn't win the role of the masked crime-fighter by being unknown; he was apparently cast on spot following his audition. Lionsgate head Mike Paseornek is happy with Miller's choice, describing Macht as having a "devilishly charming quality," and he thinks the actor will be able to embody The Spirit throughout a possible franchise.

Miller is scheduled to begin shooting The Spirit in October -- Variety reports he's doing Sin City 2 first, but that doesn't sound right -- so hopefully we'll hear soon about confirmed casting for the film's villain, Octopus. Of course, the character could be played by someone even more unknown than Macht since his face shouldn't actually be seen, but last we heard, Samuel L. Jackson was in talks for the role. For those of you out of the loop, The Spirit is a suit-and-tie-wearing, vigilante hero who was once a detective named Denny Colt before he faked his death to fight crime in Central City. His main nemesis, Octopus, is bent on wiping out the city, killing anyone with the misfortune of seeing his deformed face. The film will reportedly skip over The Spirit's origin and dive right into his adventures. Also The Spirit will apparently be portrayed as "a bit of a slut", so we shouldn't expect any Hollywood-enforced love interest, just a lot of random women.

After struggling through Hollywood for many a moon (he wrote BOTH Robocop sequels!), Frank Miller is officially hot stuff with the studios, based only on a pair of movies: 300, which spawned from his graphic novel, and Sin City, which also came from some of Miller's books, but also marked his co-directorial debut. The celebrated author / artist is about to leap into the director's chair with his very own project, and it's one that he's very passionate about: An adaptation of Will Eisner's classic comic book The Spirit.

According to Variety, Lionsgate and Odd Lot Entertainment will bankroll the project, with LG doing the distributing in North America and the UK. For those a little unfamiliar with the character: He's a masked vigilante who does battle with random criminals and a regular nemesis known as The Octopus. Miller considered the late Will Eisner "a dear friend" and a "mentor," so obviously he's going to approach his first solo directorial gig with a lot of care: "Translating his vision to the screen will be a labor of love." Word is that production on The Spirit will be scheduled once Mr. Miller knows when he'll be done on Sin City 2 with Robert Rodriguez. So not only will we be getting a new Frank Miller movie, but this gig might light a fire under the Sin City sequel. And that would be a very good thing.

If you're going to do a big-screen version of an old-school comic book classic, you'd be well-served by hiring a guy who knows his way around the medium. So when the folks who run Odd Lot Entertainment acquired the rights to Will Eisner's classic character The Spirit, they went to ... Frank Miller. Happily, the co-director of Sin City (and Sin City 2, eventually) felt protective of the project and signed on to do the thing right.

Miller says: "I intend to be extremely faithful to the heart and soul of the material, but it won't be nostalgic. It will be much scarier than people expect." Good enough for me. Having said that, I'm only slightly familiar with the source material, but DC has published all sorts of collector's volumes ... and I daresay they might be worth checking out.

No word yet on which studio will get to distribute the film, but according to Variety the big houses weren't exactly chomping at the bit to make The Spirit in the first place. Stay tuned...