Brian Michael Bendis first attracted attention in the mid-'90s writing and drawing tough, noir-inflected comics like Jinx and Torso. In 2000, he debuted Powers, a police-procedural-with-superheroes he co-created with artist Michael Avon Oeming, and Ultimate Spider-Man, an alternate-universe title that rebooted Spider-Man as a 21st-century teenager. Those titles popularized Bendis' trademarks: a deliberately paced, character-driven approach to storytelling, and an emphasis on smart, conversational dialogue.
Since then, Bendis has tightened his relationship with Marvel comics. While continuing on Powers and Ultimate Spider-Man (he's currently ushering in new artist Stuart Immonen after an 111-issue run with inaugural artist Mark Bagley) Bendis enjoyed long runs on Daredevil and Alias (a mature-readers' title he created with artist Michael Gaydos), among other titles. He's currently shepherding two Avengers series while developing a film version of Jinx with Charlize Theron. Bendis recently spoke to The A.V. Club about his craft and his secret origin.
The A.V. Club: A lot of people have said that Ultimate Spider-Man brought them back to comics. Do you hear that a lot?
Brian Michael Bendis: I'd be disingenuous if I said I didn't. I do hear it, and it always surprises me, because I'm not sure, from a marketing standpoint, how they found out about it. Because there wasn't that kind of marketing-minded push toward people, saying, "Hey, come on back!" But it did seem… I guess it was word of mouth, but it does kinda shock me, 'cause, you know. I did come from an indie world where no one was saying anything about anything.
AVC: Where do you think that series' appeal comes from?
BMB: [Pauses.] We're honest, we're completely comic writers, I think, end of the day, no matter how much crap I get for the nonsense I do, I never get hammered for dishonesty, pulling a fast one, or hacking it out. So I think generally, people I've talked to were just looking for an honest take on something they already had a fondness for, so that worked out pretty good.
I try not to overanalyze it, 'cause I don't want to ruin it for myself. You poke at it too much, and you just suck all the fun out of it. Every once in a while, someone comes up to you and you can have that kind of conversation without being too self-serving. "What about me do you like?" What I'm most proud of is that we're coming from an honest place, and it's an honest enough thing where they want to show it to their friend and go, "Look, this doesn't suck."
AVC: Do you think it came along at a time when a lot of comics were sucking, though?
BMB: Well, again, that's an odd one, because it's a generalization, but it definitely… In the history of comics and movies and music too, it's always when things are at their bottomed-out, either creatively or financially, there's more chance-taking going on. You might as well, you know… Everything else is fucked-up. You might as well green-light Easy Rider, 'cause we've got nothing else to do, nothing else is working. I'm not saying that Ultimate Spider-Man is Easy Rider, but the similarity is that in the movie industry, they were literally closing their doors—it was over. And they might as well try a couple low-budget, counterculture things and see if maybe they want that, 'cause they don't want Hello, Dolly! And I felt a similarity when we were doing the Ultimate books, when they were first launching, that things were really bad over at Marvel. And if they were so far down the list that they were up to me, then it really was, "Well, we might as well let these guys go crazy, 'cause nothing else is working."
The first time I visited the Bullpen, literally half of it was boxed up, there were like filing cabinets on top of filing cabinets, like the place was closing. They were literally in bankruptcy. And I remember feeling, "Oh, this isn't the Bullpen Stan Lee wrote about." [Laughs.] You know, Stan always presented this circus of ideas and culture and counterculture all mixed up in pop art, and you get there and it's like a going-out-of-business sale. And I remember, a year after that, the next time I got to come back, the place was back up and running again. So that's how bad it was, even if that was just my physical look at things, vs. how they actually were. We definitely got to come in there and they let us do our thing, whereas maybe a few years ago, they wouldn't have been so open.
AVC: Does being from Cleveland inform your writing in any way?
BMB: Everyone's a product of who they are, and I think that me being raised by a single woman with not much of a father figure definitely [had an effect]. One similarity I see between peers and some of the people who read my books is that comics were definitely an outlet for us. I was into comics because these were my real male role models, even though at the time, I didn't know it. But that's definitely what was going on. And I switched it over to the—I looked at who the creators of these comics were, and they became my role models. At first, I'd read The Avengers and go, "Oh God, I love The Avengers." And then I'd go, "Okay, why do I love The Avengers?" and I flip over the first page and see George Perez's name. And I go, "Okay, I love George Perez. When I grow up, I want to be George Perez."
As far as Cleveland goes, it's hard to say, other than I'm hyperly aware now that it's a second city and there's a second-city mentality, and I definitely seem to angle my love of second-tier, like the B-list characters—or those that are perceived as B-list. I don't see them as B-list. Luke Cage and all that, they're definitely the second-city characters to Captain America and Superman. So I definitely see a connection there.
But other than that, you know, I had a weird upbringing—I went to a private Hebrew school most of my life, but lived the life of a comic creator while I was there the whole time, so it's hard to say. It worked out okay, but who knows what the fuck, how it's connected?
AVC: At what point did you start working at a comic-book store?
BMB: First year in college, I was going to art school and I was tutoring some kids in artwork, which was really disgusting. If you saw my artwork, that was really offensive, that people were paying me to teach them to do the stuff that I was doing. One of the guys said, "Hey, I heard the guy downtown owns a comics store is paying like $50 for the McFarlane issue of Detective Comics." And I was like, "Shit, I have that, and I need the $50 more than anything." So I went down there to sell it, and he offered me $25, and I said, "This is worth $50." And then we were haggling, and the guy goes, "Are you Jewish?" And I was so offended—like, what, because I'm haggling? And I go, "Yeah." And he goes, "Good, I'm Jewish. Listen, I'm a lawyer, I need to go to court. Take the keys, run the store, I'll pay you in a few hours." And he never even asked me my name.
I wasn't gonna work in a comics store, but then I started working there, and after a few days, I went, like, "Jesus Christ, I really need to work here, there's a lot of shit about the business and about publishers I don't know at all, and it just seemed like the perfect way—and in art school, I wasn't able to apply my art directly to comics. The work at the comics store became more of a college to me than the school I was paying thousands of dollars a year to go to. I'm actually very glad I worked at a comics store, and I recommend it to a lot of people who ask me. I have literally gone to the warehouse, picked the comics up, put them in a car, saw how they were distributed, how they got from A to B, how they're displayed on the stands, why they're displayed on the stands that way. And I've talked to every single type of comic-book reader from every walk of life. Some of them are intense readers; some are more casual, but some guys are just insane and need a new issue of Darkhawk every day, and they keep coming in every day asking for Darkhawk, even though you tell them it's a monthly book.
I think working there was the greatest thing I did for myself, 'cause now when I'm creating the books, I know how they're going to be put out. A lot of my peers just don't know a lot of this stuff.
AVC: And you already knew you wanted to create comics when you were working there?
BMB: Yeah, I was already making 'em. I was already working, and I bullied my… I went to Cleveland Institute Of Art for five years, and about three years in, I kinda said, "Listen, I'll learn anything you wanna teach me, but I have to apply it directly to my comic-book artwork, because that's what I'm here for, and if I can't do it, I'm gonna have to just leave and take my money elsewhere. Not to be rude about it, but I just have this goal in mind, please let me do it." And while I was working at the comics store, I did a comic book—my graduation thesis from like my second or third year, I can't remember, but at the end of the semester, you had to pick a project, and I made like an anthology project. And I sold the comic book at the store as part of the project. I got feedback from people, and a couple of the people who bought it pointed out a couple publishers, like Fantagraphics or Caliber, that they thought might actually publish it for real. Literally eight months to the day of me sending it out, I heard from both Caliber and Fantagraphics, and Fantagraphics offered me what my next project would be, and Caliber offered to publish the comic I already put out as is. And I then went to my college and said, "Listen, I got publishing contracts, and what I want to do is stay in school, but I want to work on my projects that I'm doing for publication." So they assigned me a professor and gave me independent study for illustration and let me, like, work on my comics for class. So, I'm getting graded on them and I'm putting them out on the stands.
AVC: What was the title of this?
BMB: It's called Parts Of A Whole. Please do not look for it.
AVC: Is it out there?
BMB: I'm talking to people who are reading this interview. [Laughs.] Yeah, it's out there. What happened was, Caliber offered to publish it, I couldn't believe it, and of course then I had to redraw the entire book. I redrew everything, 'cause it wasn't good enough for publishing. It was just like a mishmash of two stories, a superhero parody, and some other stuff, and I put it out. It did okay. It was startling to be on the stands. And I started on a new project, and originally it was for… Do you remember when Fantagraphics was doing porn comics?
AVC: They still do, as Eros.
BMB: But they also had something called Monster Comics, not a horror line, but a B-movie-monster line. So I was kinda angling my piece for the monster line, but it had female leads in it, and the editor told me, "Gee, if ya nipple it up a little bit, like draw some nipples or rip the shirts or something, we could put it in the Eros line, and it would do, like twice the numbers." And I was like, "Jesus Christ, don't you guys publish Love And Rockets? You guys are telling me to put nipples on it?" I was so bummed out, and I remember thinking, "Hmmm, I am way too young to be selling out that hard so fast. I'm sure one day I'll have a wife and a kid and I'll need to, but Jesus, you know? If I don't not sell out now, when will I not sell out, you know?" So things were going really well with Caliber, and I called up Caliber said, "Yeah, I got this book and it's about these Amazons that go to college and everything, and they want me to put nipples on it." And he was like, "Well, if you're uncomfortable, we'll publish it as is, you know." So then I just ended up staying at Caliber for a few years, where I made a lot of my close friends and collaborators.
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