Brian Michael Bendis

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Image:WW20040106-bendis.gifBrian 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.

1 Biography
2 Writer profile
3 Trivia
4 Cameo appearances
5 Bibliography
6 External links

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Biography

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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.

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1990s: Noir fiction and creator-owned works

Image:Bendisjinx.jpgIn 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".

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2000s: Superhero work and Marvel Comics

Image:Usmcover1.jpgIn 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 renamed to 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. Image:Daredevil41.jpg 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." [1] 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. [2] [3]

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Writer profile

Bendis is primarily noted for two things: on one hand, his skill in writing dialogue, and on the other hand, carefully, slowly progressing plots of his story arcs.

Firstly, Bendis is regarded as a fine comics dialogue writer. He is able to write a large range of dialogue convincingly, such as Quentin Tarantino-like "gangsta" talk and snappy teen banter (both featured in Ultimate Spider-Man), deep psychological abysses (Daredevil) and also romantic comedy (Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #1), in a way it feels natural and never forced. Bendis also writes inner monologues with the same skill. He also uses up whole pages with few words and repeating identical panels throughout a page, a point which is sometimes met with scorn.

Secondly, Bendis has established a reputation for careful plotting. Especially when writing a longer story arc (i.e. six or seven issues), he prefers providing a good backbone for the story first, so that especially the first and often the second and third issues are mainly exposition (featured in many story arcs of Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil). While critics point out a level of bore and blandness, his supporters laud this approach for being mature and fundamentally sound.

Lastly, Bendis has been lauded for revitalizing several relatively obscure old characters and bringing them to prominence; examples include Luke Cage and Spider-Woman.

As a side note, an often used plot device of Bendis' is to have one character run at another and start beating on them screaming some variation of "What you've done to my life!" He has used it in New Avengers, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate Six, and others.

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Trivia

Bendis is known for extremely sarcastic and profanity-filled responses, which many readers consider funny, to comments from fans in the letters column of his comic books and on his Internet message boards.
Bendis has been mentioned at least twice on The O.C.
Bendis is mentioned in the Daredevil movie: when the corrupt boxing manager tries to persuade Jack Murdock, he references his bribed boxers "Miller...Mack...[and] Bendis". The former two refer to former Daredevil writers Frank Miller and David Mack.

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Cameo appearances

Powerless #5 (December 2004), written by Matt Cherniss and Peter Johnson and drawn by Michael Gaydos, features a cameo appearance by Bendis in which he is seeing a psychiatrist for mental therapy.
Screenwriter (and later comic book writer) Allan Heinberg named a supporting character on the television show The O.C. after Bendis, and Seth Cohen, a fictional protagonist of the show, is a comic book fan whose favorite writer is Bendis.
In the pilot episode, called "Serenity", of the television show Firefly, screenwriter (and later comic book writer) Joss Whedon named a soldier who appears and dies near the beginning of the episode after Bendis.
In Ultimate Spider-Man #66 and #67 Bendis appared in a humorous cameo where he talked about his feelings for the current story arc.
In the MMORPG Video Game "City of Heroes" there is an in game zone "Perez Park" in which the user can find an Exploration Badge reward named "Around the Bendis" as well as many other comic book writer/artist related references.
When Marvel's What If was revived in 2004, Bendis cameoed as the narrator of two issues that he also wrote: What if Karen Page Had Not Died? and What If Jessica Jones Had Joined the Avengers?
Bendis appeared many times in Marvel's badly-delayed 2005 book Wha...Huh?!, written by various luminaries of the comics industry, with art by Jim Mahfood.
In the Daredevil film, the unseen boxers that Jack Murdock defeats on his way to a title shot are named "Bendis", "Miller" and "Mack".