The whole reason why DC chose Frank Miller for either the DKR or Year One project was because of how much ass he was kicking with Daredevil over for Marvel. His work on Daredevil is what influenced DKR, Year One, and everone else who followed him. And both were obviously influenced by Will Eisner's The Spirit. Back to Batman, a great deal of his visual storytelling in DKR is directly lifted from Elektra Assasin (Yes, I know it was illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz, but Miller was a definite part of the artistic process, as he writes very detailed scripts with suggested page layout).
The truth is that Miller was did the same thing for Batman that he did with Daredevil. He revised and gritified the origins of the characters in the regular ongoing series, but did his most artistic work with the characters in the graphic novel (Daredevil, DKR).