Brian Michael Bendis

Brian Michael Bendis

Bendis at a signing at Midtown Comics in Manhattan, June 21, 2010
Born August 18, 1967 (1967-08-18) (age 44)
Cleveland, Ohio
Nationality American
Area(s) Writer, Artist
Notable works Ultimate Spider-Man
Powers
New Avengers
Daredevil
Alias
Jinx
House of M
Secret Invasion
Spider-Woman
Awards

Five Eisner Awards
Including:

  • Best New Series (2001)
  • Best Writer (2002, 2003)

4 Wizard Awards

3 Comics Buyer's Guide Awards

Brian Michael Bendis (born August 18, 1967) is an American comic book writer and former artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) for his self-published, Image Comics and Marvel Comics work, and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics, with his books selling consistently highly for over a decade.[1]

Starting out with crime and noir comics, Bendis eventually moved to mainstream superhero work. With Bill Jemas and Mark Millar, Bendis was the primary architect of the Ultimate Marvel Universe, launching Ultimate Spider-Man in 2001, on which he continues as writer to the present day. He relaunched the Avengers franchise with New Avengers in 2004, and has also written the Marvel "event" storylines "House Of M", "Secret War", 2008's "Secret Invasion" and 2009's "Siege".

Though Bendis has cited comic book writers such as Frank Miller and Alan Moore, his own writing influences are less rooted in comics, drawing considerably on the work of David Mamet, Richard Price, and Aaron Sorkin, whose dialogue Bendis feels are "the best in any medium."[2]

In addition to writing comics, he has also worked in television, video games and film, and teaches writing at Portland State University.

Contents

Early life

Brian Michael Bendis was born on August 18, 1967 in Cleveland to a Jewish-American family. Despite rebelling against a religious upbringing, he attended a private, modern Orthodox religious school for boys. He decided he wanted to be a comic book industry professional when he was 13, working on his own comics, including a Punisher versus Captain America story that he revised several times. A fan of Marvel Comics in particular, he emulated idols such as George Pérez, John Romita, Sr., John Romita, Jr., Jack Kirby and Klaus Janson.[3][4][5] He later discovered crime comics by Jim Steranko and José Munoz, which he traced back via Jim Thompson's work to the source novels of both Thompson and Dashiell Hammett, which helped cement his love for crime stories.[2] These in turn led him to discover the documentary Visions of Light, which taught him the explicit visual rules of film noir, an important influence of him creatively.[2][5]

While in high school, he submitted for a "Creative Writing assignment" a novelization of Chris Claremont's X-Men and the Starjammers story, which gained him an A+ grade for imagination and inventiveness.[5] Between the ages of 20 and 25, he sent in a large number of submissions to comics companies, although he ultimately stopped his attempts to break into the industry this way, considering it too much of a "lottery."[4]

Comics career

Caliber Comics

Best known as a writer, Bendis started out as an artist, doing work for local magazines and newspapers, including caricature work. He worked at The Plain Dealer as an illustrator." Although he did not enjoy caricature work, it paid well and funded his interest in writing crime fiction for graphic novels.[2] He eventually moved into both writing and illustrating his work, before he began producing work for Caliber Comics, including Spunky Todd.[5]

Through Caliber, he met many of his longtime friends and collaborators within the comics industry, including Mike Oeming, Dave Mack and Marc Andreyko,[6] and began the first in a series of independent noir fiction crime comics when he published two issues of Fire in 1993 and five issues of A.K.A. Goldfish in 1994 with Caliber. In 1995 he illustrated Flaxen, from a script by James Hudnall, with David Mack providing inks to the story featuring former Playboy Playmate Susie Owens as mascot of the Golden Apple Comics chain [of comic shops] in Los Angeles.[7]

Bendis' best-known early work, Jinx, starring the titular bounty hunter in a crime noir version of the Sergio Leone film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, began publication in 1996, and ran seven issues from Caliber.[7] Most of these early works share a common universe, with Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso and (stories from) Total Sell Out sharing characters and settings as well as tone.

He characterizes much of this period of his professional life in terms of working as "a graphic artist for almost twelve years"[2] undergoing a period within that of "nine years" living as a stereotypical 'starving artist'.[4]

Image Comics and Oni Comics

In 1996/1997, Bendis moved from Caliber to Image Comics,[4] where Jinx and his other previous crime comics were published by Image's Shadowline arm in trade paperback. At Image, he also produced five more issues of Jinx.[7]

Impressed with A.K.A. Goldfish, Image founder Todd McFarlane sought out Bendis, which led to his writing Sam and Twitch. Although set in the Spawn universe, Bendis approached Sam and Twitch primarily as a crime comic.[4][6] He wrote Sam and Twitch for twenty issues, as well as most of the first ten issues of Hellspawn, another Spawn spin-off title. This non-creator-owned work allowed him to, in the words of Rich Kriener in The Comics Journal, "[add] the responsibility of caretaker to his resume, in that he would answer to a vested owner about developing a property as a tangible asset with the future in mind," rather than only working on his own characters under his own terms.[7]

In 1998, Bendis co-wrote and illustrated the Eliot Ness-starring Torso with Marc Andreyko, again for Image, and in 2000 he produced three issues of the autobiographical Fortune and Glory for Oni Comics.[7]

That same year saw the debut of the superhero police/noir detective series Powers, co-created with and drawn by Michael Avon Oeming and published by Image. Powers won major comics industry awards, including Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Awards, and was referenced in the song "Powers" by singer Brodie Foster Hubbard.

Marvel Comics

Around the time Bendis began Sam and Twitch, his friend David Mack began working for Joe Quesada's Marvel Knights imprint, of which Bendis himself was a fan. Based on Bendis' work on Jinx, Quesada invited him to pitch ideas for Marvel Knights, which included a planned, but ultimately unproduced Nick Fury story.[4]

Marvel Comics President Bill Jemas, on the recommendation of Quesada, hired Bendis to write Ultimate Spider-Man, which debuted in 2000,[4] and was specifically targeted to the new generation of comic readers. Bendis adapted the 11-page origin story of Peter Parker from 1962's Amazing Fantasy #15 into a seven issues story arc, with Peter Parker becoming the titular hero after the fifth issue, making the book a bestseller, often surpassing in sales those of the mainstream Marvel universe title The Amazing Spider-Man.[8] The Bendis/Bagley partnership of 110 consecutive issues made their partnership one of the longest in American comic book history, and the longest run by a Marvel creative team, beating out Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on Fantastic Four. Bendis subsequently wrote other books in the Ultimate line, including Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, which Bendis himself pitched to Marvel as a follow-up to his success on Ultimate Spider-Man,[5] as well as Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Origin, Ultimate Six, the first three issues of Ultimate Power, and the Ultimate Comics: Doomsday metaseries. As of November 2011, Bendis continues to write every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man in its current form, Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man.

Quesada offered Bendis the writing chores on Daredevil,[4], which he took over in 2001, writing most of the subsequent 55 issues until 2006, collaborating mostly with artist Alex Maleev. As a major Daredevil author, Bendis' name is one of the names used for boxers mentioned by a corrupt boxing manager in the 2003 Daredevil movie. Also in 2001, Bendis helped launch Marvel's non-Comics Code-approved, adult MAX imprint with Alias, featuring former superhero Jessica Jones operating as a private investigator. The series ran for 28 issues before many of the characters moved to Bendis' mainstream Marvel Universe series The Pulse. In 2004 Powers moved from Image to Marvel's creator-owned imprint Icon, where it was relaunched as Powers Vol. 2 alongside another ex-Image series, David Mack's Kabuki.

Also in 2004, Bendis oversaw the closing issues of The Avengers as part of the crossover storyline "Avengers Disassembled". This led directly to the Bendis-helmed relaunch of one version of the eponymous team in the pages of New Avengers. Bendis' work on this storyline included the death of Avenger Hawkeye, which proved controversial.[5] In 2005, with artist Olivier Coipel, Bendis wrote the New Avengers / X-Men crossover, "House of M", which would retroactively be considered the second act of a three-act super-event beginning with "Avengers Disassembled" and culminating in the Bendis-written 2008 event Secret Invasion. Bendis also wrote Secret War, which was serialized between 2004 and 2005. The series, which was not connected to the similarly-titled 1984 maxiseries Secret Wars, served as a prelude to Secret Invasion. After the events of Marvel's 2006 "Civil War" storyline, Bendis helmed another Avengers revival, launching Mighty Avengers with Frank Cho in 2007.

Post-Secret Invasion, Bendis left Mighty Avengers with issue #20 and wrote Secret Invasion: Dark Reign, a one-shot that preceded another ongoing Avengers series, Dark Avengers.[9][10][11] In 2009, Bendis and former Daredevil collaborator Maleev launched the long-delayed Spider-Woman, following up on her role in the Secret Invasion storyline. Spider-Woman was the first comic book to be offered simultaneously on the Internet as a "motion comic" and in comic stores in print form.[12]

Bendis re-teamed with House of M's Coipel for the 2009 crossover series Siege, which brought the "Dark Reign" storyline to a close, and with it Dark Avengers. Springboarding out of Siege, Bendis relaunched both Avengers and New Avengers as part of the "Heroic Age". Also in 2010, Bendis launched Scarlet through Icon Comics, his first new creator-owned comic book in over a decade, re-teaming once again with Maleev. In February 2011, Icon released the all-ages graphic novel Takio by Bendis and his Powers collaborator Mike Oeming[13][14] and in mid-2011 a maxiseries called Brilliant with artist Bagley.[15][16] Bendis' other 2011 projects include a new Moon Knight series with Maleev.[17]

Work in other media

In addition to his primary work for comics, Bendis has produced written work in several other media, such as video games, TV and film.

Bendis was the co-executive producer and series-pilot writer for Mainframe Entertainment's 2003 CGI animated Spider-Man show, Spider-Man: The New Animated Series that aired on MTV and YTV, which features a college-aged Peter Parker, and was written to tie-into the then-unreleased 2002 film Spider-Man. The pilot episode Bendis wrote became the third episode aired. His dismay at being credited for something written by someone else, and the multitude corporations and legal departments involved in the animation process soured him on the show.[5][18]

Bendis' video game work includes Activision's Ultimate Spider-Man video game, which Bendis wrote.[1] His film work includes the screenplay adaptation of A.K.A. Goldfish for Miramax,[19] and the screenplay adaptation of Jinx for Universal Pictures.[1]

Bendis also teaches a course on writing graphic novels at Portland State University. Among the works he employs as teaching guides are the works of Scott McCloud and Will Eisner.[3]

Personal life

Bendis met his future wife Alisa in 1995 through the Cleveland chapter of the Hillel Foundation, where Alisa worked and Bendis was a staff illustrator. The two were married within a year. Alisa Bendis runs the business end of JINXWORLD, the company through which Bendis produces his creator-owned comics work. The company also acts as the middleman through which he produces his licensed comics work.[5] They have three daughters. His oldest, Olivia,[20] is his biological daughter, while he and his wife adopted their two younger daughters, one of whom is African-American, and the other of whom is Ethiopian.[21][20][22][23]

Awards

Nominations

Bibliography

Caliber Comics

Titles published by Caliber include:

Image Comics

Titles published by Image include:

Marvel Comics

Titles published by Marvel include:

Other US publishers

Titles published by various American publishers include:

References

  1. ^ a b c d Bendis, Brian Michael and Oeming, Michael Avon, Powers TPB Vol. 9 - Psychotic (Icon, 2006), ISBN 0-7851-1743-1
  2. ^ a b c d e Bendis, Brian Michael and Oeming, Michael Avon, Powers TPB Vol. 5 - Anarchy (Image, 2003), ISBN 1-58240-331-7
  3. ^ a b "The Bendis-Fraction Conversation" Comic-Con Magazine (Winter 2010). Pages 24-28
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Bendis, Brian Michael and Oeming, Michael Avon, Powers TPB Vol. 3 - Little Deaths (Image, 2002), ISBN 1-58240-670-7
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Dean, Michael. Brian Michael Bendis interview, The Comics Journal #266. Retrieved June 21, 2008.
  6. ^ a b "An Interview with Brian Michael Bendis by Adrian Reynolds" Part 1. Retrieved June 16, 2008.
  7. ^ a b c d e "5,137 Pages of Brian Michael Bendis" by Rich Kreiner, The Comics Journal #271, Saturday, 15 October 2005. Retrieved June 21, 2008.
  8. ^ "ICv2's Top 300 Comics & Top 100 GN's Index". ICv2 News. http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/1850.html. Retrieved June 27, 2008. 
  9. ^ "Marvel Announces 'Dark Reign' at Diamond Retailer Summit". Newsarama. September 9, 2008. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080909-marvel-diamond-summit.html. 
  10. ^ "Prepare for a Dark Reign". Marvel.com. September 9, 2008. http://www.marvel.com/news/comicstories.4836.Prepare_for_a_Dark_Reign. 
  11. ^ "Getting Dark: Brian Bendis on Dark Avengers & Dark Reign". Newsarama. September 29, 2008. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090829-BendisDarkAvengers.html. 
  12. ^ Richards, Dave (February 8, 2009). "NYCC: Bendis and Maleev Talk “Spider-Woman” Digital Motion Comics". Comic Book Resources. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=19934. 
  13. ^ "Special Sneak Preview: Takio". Marvel.com. December 17, 2010. http://marvel.com/news/story/14879/special_sneak_preview_takio. 
  14. ^ Ching, Albert (October 10, 2010). "NYCC 2010: BENDIS and OEMING Take On All-Ages Series TAKIO". Newsarama. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/nycc-bendis-oeming-takio-101010.html. 
  15. ^ Ching, Albert (March 19, 2011). "Bendis and Bagley on Their BRILLIANT Creator-Owned Debut". Newsarama. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/brian-michael-bendis-mark-bagley-brilliant-110319.html. Retrieved October 11, 2011. "This is a long miniseries so I guess the technical term is maxiseries. But it's really something in between." 
  16. ^ Richards, Dave (March 19, 2011). "C2E2: Bendis & Bagley's "Brilliant" New Creation". Comic Book Resources. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=31403. Retrieved October 11, 2011. 
  17. ^ Brothers, David. "[UPDATE] Bendis & Maleev on 'Moon Knight,' Mark Waid on 'Ruse' & Marvel Meets ESPN [NYCC]", Comics Alliance, October 9, 2010
  18. ^ "Spider-Man: The New Animated Series" review by Matthew Craig (from "Robot Fist" magazine). Retrieved June 27, 2008.
  19. ^ "An Interview with Brian Michael Bendis by Adrian Reynolds" Part 2. Retrieved June 16, 2008.
  20. ^ a b Behrens, Web. "Superheroic sisters". Time Out Chicago. April 1, 2011
  21. ^ Behrens, Web. "Superheroic sisters". Time Out Chicago. April 1, 2011
  22. ^ Ching, Albert. "Identity of the New ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN Revealed [SPOILERS]". Newsarama. August 2, 2011
  23. ^ Truitt, Brian. "A TV comedy assured new Spidey's creator". USA Today. August 2, 2011
  24. ^ 1999 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  25. ^ a b c d 2001 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  26. ^ 2002 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  27. ^ a b c 2003 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  28. ^ 2002 8th Annual Wizard Fan Awards (2000) Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  29. ^ 2002 9th Annual Wizard Fan Awards (2001) Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  30. ^ 2002 10th Annual Wizard Fan Awards (2002) Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  31. ^ 2002 11th Annual Wizard Fan Awards (2003) Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  32. ^ 20th Annual Comics Buyers Guide Fan Awards (2002) Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  33. ^ 21st Annual Comics Buyers Guide Fan Awards (2003) Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  34. ^ 22nd Annual Comics Buyers Guide Fan Awards (2004) Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  35. ^ Goldstone, Jeremy. "E3 Reviews: "Ultimate Spider-Man," "Hulk: Ultimate Destruction" and "Marvel Nemesis"" Comic Book Resources; May 22, 2005
  36. ^ "Comic-Con International's Inkpot Awards", Comic-Con.org. Retrieved December 26, 2010.

External links

Brian Michael Bendis
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Brian Michael Bendis • Mike Deodato
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