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Brian Michael Bendis

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Brian Michael Bendis.
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Brian Michael Bendis.
Brian Michael Bendis (he is also known as BMB and often signs his work with "BENDIS!") (born August 18 1967) is an American comic book writer and erstwhile artist who has won five Eisner Awards as of 2005. In the mid-2000s, he became one of the highest-selling comic book writers in the industry. Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series such as A.K.A. Goldfish, Jinx, Powers, and Torso, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics superhero books such as Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Alias/The Pulse and New Avengers. He was also instrumental in the creation of several Marvel Comics imprints, among them Ultimate Marvel, MAX, and Icon Comics.

Contents

Biography

Early life, education, and personal info

Brian Michael Bendis was born to a Jewish-American family on August 18, 1967, in Cleveland, Ohio where he attended the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland and the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Brian Michael Bendis is married to Alisa Bendis(nee:Berman), who manages the Jinxworld message board.

1990s: Noir fiction and creator-owned works

Jinx.
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Jinx.
In the 1990s, following art school, Bendis entered the comic book industry. His early works were in the genre of noir fiction, and he both wrote and drew the artwork for his early works.

Contacted by Filsinger Games to work as the artist for their popular Champions of the Galaxy wrestling game, he went on to become the most prolific artist in that game's history.

Joining Caliber Comics in the early 1990s, Bendis created the titles A.K.A. Goldfish and Jinx, both creator-owned. During this time, he worked as an artist for the Champions of the Galaxy wrestling card game, and in fact one of his characters from Goldfish was used as the inspiration for game character Nefarus. While working for Caliber Comics, Bendis met and became best friends with fellow comic book creator David Mack before either was famous; Mack would later help Bendis to land a position at Marvel. A sketch of Bendis by Mack can be found [here].

Later, Bendis moved his work to Image Comics, where in addition to republishing A.K.A. Goldfish and Jinx, he created Torso, based on the story of Eliot Ness' hunt for Cleveland Torso Murderer. He also worked on two properties owned by Todd McFarlane: Sam and Twitch and Hellspawn.

In 1999, he won his first Eisner Award, "Talent Deserving of Higher Recognition".

2000s: Superhero work and Marvel Comics

Ultimate Spider-Man.
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Ultimate Spider-Man.
In 2000, Bendis began writing Powers, published by Image Comics with art by Michael Avon Oeming. Powers would serve as sort of a bridge between two periods of work: it was noir fiction, but noir fiction in a world of superheroes.

In 2000, David Mack recommended Bendis to Joe Quesada, who was then editor of the Marvel Knights line of Marvel Comics (soon to be editor-in-chief). Both Bendis and Quesada have recounted an anecdote that when Quesada called Bendis with an offer, Bendis thought it was an offer to do artwork, at which point Quesada told him, "Your art sucks!" and asked him to be a writer instead. Since he began working for Marvel Comics, Bendis has only very rarely drawn comic books.

Bendis, Quesada, Marvel's then-publisher Bill Jemas, and Scottish writer Mark Millar then worked together to create the Ultimate Marvel imprint, which featured new, updated versions of Marvel's characters. Bendis himself wrote Ultimate Spider-Man; the title launched in 2000 and turned out to be a huge hit, exposing Bendis to a much larger audience.

Bendis next took over as writer of Daredevil in 2001; his run, characterized by a gritty, noir-fiction style, has been widely called the most definitive treatment of the character since Frank Miller's run in the 1980s. Bendis would win two Eisner Awards for Daredevil in 2003: "Best Continuing Series" and "Best Writer".

Bendis continued to work in the Ultimate Marvel universe, not only writing Ultimate Spider-Man but also doing runs on Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four as well as writing the entirety of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up and Ultimate Six.

Bendis wanted to write a series focusing on Jessica Drew, a Marvel-owned character, but addressing adult themes. Marvel did not want their character to be in such themes, so Bendis created a character all his own named Jessica Jones. However Marvel Comics did not have a mature line comparable to the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics. To address this issue, Marvel launched the MAX imprint in 2001, with Bendis's Alias being the first title of the new imprint. Later, in 2004, Alias would be replaced by The Pulse and moved out of the imprint into the main Marvel Comics imprint.

In 2004, Bendis took over Avengers. His first story arc was Avengers Disassembled, a major crossover which was very popular but also very controversial amongst longtime fans. Avengers then relaunched to become New Avengers with a revamped line-up, including Spider-Man and Wolverine. Bendis also wrote Secret War in 2004, featuring a cast of superheroes very similar to the cast of New Avengers.

Daredevil.
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Daredevil.

In 2004, Bendis moved his Powers from Image Comics over to Marvel Comics. Because Powers was creator-owned, it could not be published as part of the regular Marvel Comics imprint. To address this need for an imprint for creator-owned comics, necessitated primarily by Powers and Kabuki (owned by Bendis's friend and occasional collaborator, David Mack), Marvel created the Icon Comics imprint.

In 2005, Bendis developed the concept and became lead writer of the major company-wide Marvel Comics crossover House of M. Referring to the crossover, Bendis said in an interview, "I think by the end of issue 3, we'll crack the Internet right in half. I think that'll be it for the Internet." [link] The quotation became widely quoted and parodied in the comic book community. The quotation was attacked by Bendis's critics as an example of over-hype; Bendis's supporters approved of Bendis's enthusiasm for the crossover event and countered that the quotation was not meant to be taken literally.

Bendis is reuniting with his Daredevil collaborator, Alex Maleev, for an ongoing Spider-Woman comic book starring Jessica Drew, which is slated for release in late 2006.

He is writing a screenplay for a Jinx movie which is set to star Charlize Theron. [link] [link]

Writer profile

Bendis is primarily noted for two things: emphasis on dialogue and careful story buildup.

First, Bendis is known for his trademark "wordy" style. He often lets his characters talk in long, "ping-pong" word-exchanges with on one hand just a few words per speech bubble, but on the other hand a double-digit number of bubbles per page. He often uses up whole pages with relatively few words and repeating identical panels throughout a page. When the viewpoint character is alone, Bendis also often uses long monologues, either spoken or as thought captions.

Second, he is noted (and often criticised) for the subdued pace of his story arcs. Especially when writing a longer story arc (i.e. six or seven issues), the first issues are mainly exposition. This is featured e.g. in many story arcs of Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel Knights Daredevil. His work is perhaps the foremost example of the trend of decompressed storytelling.

Lastly, Bendis has revitalized several relatively obscure old characters and bringing them to prominence; examples include Luke Cage and Spider-Woman. However, Bendis also has no problem expressing a certain bias concerning characters, to the point of killing off characters he simply does not like, such as Carnage.

Trivia

Cameo appearances

Bibliography

Created and owned by Bendis

Image Comics

Marvel Comics

External links

 

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