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Original Material
An Interview with Brian Michael
Bendis
by
Andrew Goletz
After gaining critical fame and a cult following on books like Fire, AKA:Goldfish and Jinx, Brian took his talent to Image Comics where he continued to publish Jinx and later began writing Sam and Twitch, a Spawn spin-off and Torso, a mini-series about the infamous torso killer. In the meantime he won an Eisner Award and an even more prestigious Grayhaven Griffin Award. Then, Fortune and Glory, a 3 issue auto-biographical series about his mis-adventures in Hollywood became a surprise hit, earning more mainstream praise.
Does the man take a break and a well deserved vacation after this? No. He takes on two more month writing assignments: Hellspawn (another on-going Spawn title) and Powers, his first creator owned full color book. Add a Batman story, a 3 issue Daredevil arc, a top secret Spider-Man project and some more secrets that should be blown by the time you read this and you have Brian Michael Bendis, the hardest working man in comics.
Brian would also like to make it known that Fire, AKA: Goldfish, Jinx, Torso, Fortune and Glory, Powers, Sam and Twitch, Hellspawn, original art and t-shirts are all available through him at Jinxworld. Check it out and stay for the message boards; you’ll be hooked like a heroin addict.
AG: So Brian, when we first did an interview years ago in Gray Haven, you had just taken Jinx to Image and I had gotten the best sales ever on Gray Haven Magazine. Several years later, you’re writing 4 monthly books, you’re an Eisner winner, a screen writer and you’re writing some of the biggest icons in comics while I am just starting over from scratch. What the hell did I do wrong?
BMB: What? I guess you didn’t sell your soul to the devil. Seriously, though.Its very cool that you’ve decided to give this another shot. I think its a great idea and you need to go with your passions on this and give it a try.
AG: How does it feel to have such a huge following now? You had the cult fan base with Jinx and Goldfish, then a more aggressive core group with Sam and Twitch and Powers and now you’ll be getting serious fan boy glory with Batman and Daredevil.
BMB: Id love to tell you that this was part of some grand master plan of
mine, but it wasn’t. To an outsider, it may seem like this all happened rather quickly, but it didn’t. This was a slow and steady process that has gone on for 8 or 9 years. There were never any guarantees that any of this would work. I think its just that the industry was in such bad shape that if anyone stayed with it long enough, it would be their turn to shine. Its like, great, now its our turn to be popular.
AG: So a fair share of luck was involved?
BMB: Luck and hard work. And a passion to do what I wanted to do. Honestly, Fortune and Glory was done just for me. I never expected anyone to like it. If anything, I thought my agent would drop me and I’d be blacklisted from Hollywood after it came out. I never thought that it would get the critical and fan reaction that it did. It was a tremendous surprise. It’s the same thing with Powers. Mike and I took a huge gamble with this. We never did anything on this level and we wanted to give it a try.
AG: The love of the work had a lot to do with it, too.
BMB: I think you need to pick projects that mean something to you. My goal is always to make a story as good as I can make it without second guessing what an audiences reaction will be. I cant please everyone, but I need to at least be proud of the work that I do and do it to the best of my ability. And I think that’s where some of the success came from. People start to seek you out and ask you to work with them instead of the other way around.
AG: What’s the difference for you in writing a character like Batman or
Daredevil, with such a rich history and writing Powers or even Sam and
Twitch?
BMB: I think its great to work on something you own yourself because
you get to make up all your own rules. With other peoples characters, its
different. People do have some expectations, but you need to not only give
them what they want, but give them something more. Sam and Twitch more flexible than I thought, though.
AG: How so?
BMB: With Sam and Twitch, no one expected anything from me. No one really thought it would work, and no one thought anyone would like it. It was an underdog situation from the beginning and I loved it. There really was no editorial imput. Todd didn’t come and say to me, You should do this and you cant do that. My first feedback from him was after the book came out. Todd was like, I’m glad you didn’t make them like Abbott and Costello. But the thing is, I knew that was the key to the books success. not to. I’m just glad it worked and that people have been so receptive to it.
AG: So the pressure was off?
BMB: Exactly. And that was the fun part. It was like the situation Frank
Miller had on Daredevil or Alan Moore on Swamp Thing. Those books were shit before they took over and no one expected them to do well, but they turned it around. I mean, I still get some people who were flipping out over small stuff, like Twitch’s goatee.
AG: His goatee?
BMB: Yeah. Twitch always had this little Hitler mustache and the artists
hated drawing that thing, and now he is a leading character and not a secondary, so I made him have a goatee. Then there was this goatee vs Hitler mustache faction. Its just amazing and its genuinely cool that everything is coming together like it has.
AG: Any plans to draw again?
BMB: Not this year. Oni and I have a handshake on another series but it’s too early to talk about. And I promised Matt Wagner that Id do something for Grendel: Black and White, because well, its Matt Wagner and Grendel.
AG: But nothing as involved as Jinx or Torso?
BMB: No. With Fire, Goldfish, Jinx and Torso, I was drawing like, thousands of pages for a stretch. Honestly, I think I’m a better writer than artist. I’m not exactly working with chimps for artists. I think I’m fortunate to have people like Mike and Angel and David and Ashley drawing my stories. I think they’re the best in the business and its great to work with them. But I still have a hand in the art.
AG: What do you mean?
BMB: I get very visually involved with my scripts. I don’t do it to the
extent where I don’t give them enough room to be creative, but I have very loose story boards that I create for the scripts. Plus, now that I’m not
writing, its fun to tell them to do huge crowd scenes or wide shots and city
streets.
AG: And you’re content not to draw for now?
BMB: Yeah, and I don’t think I was that great at it to begin with. That’s something I really respect about Todd. People are always asking when he’s going to draw Spawn or anything else again and he just tells them he doesn’t think he wants to compete with the fondness people had for his art six years ago. He could do it if he wanted to and it’d sell a million copies, but he doesn’t feel like he’s right for it. He’s concentrating on running his business properly instead of doing all these little things half-assed.
AG: You’ll be at a lot of conventions this year, with some reluctance?
BMB: I made a commitment to be at them and people were nice enough to invite me, but after this year, I think I’m going to take it easy on the convention scene for awhile.
AG: They’re known for their horror stories. Any favorites you’d like to share?
BMB: I don’t think I could say anything that would visualize it better than Trekkies. I do have some good memories, though. I mean, its great to meet the fans and be there to meet new readers and people who love what I’m doing. Its an honor and I love to have a chance to talk to them face to face. And I’ve met a lot of good friends and people that I now work with at conventions. I mean part of the problem is the fact that I don’t feel like they’re really trying to market the comics. People like Roger Price do an excellent job of trying to bring some class and dignity to these shows, but in most other cases.
AG: I love the wall of faux celebrities.
BMB: I mean, really. And the convention whores. There was a god damn Hooters booth at one of them. I’ve got nothing against seeing beautiful, half naked women, but what business does Hooters or any of these other things have being at a comic show. You’re not going to bring your kids to these things (alienating the target audience) and you’re not going to bring your girlfriend to them (alienating a new audience). It’s ridiculous. I do have a couple favorite memories, though, now that I think about it.
AG: What are they?
BMB: One of my favorites was at a Detroit show a few years back. There was a costume contest, which I usually assume are for kids, but this guy showed up on Friday in a Solar: Man of the Atom costume. Only, he didn’t have the body for Solar. He looked more like Danny DeVito. The costume contest was over on Friday, but he was dressed again on Saturday, looking worse for the wear. On the third day, he was an absolute mess; big belly sticking out, black from leaning against comic boxes all day.
AG: Oh my god.
AG: Sigh.
BMB: And there was the argument some guy had with John Byrne.
AG: Really? That’s a shock.
BMB: Yeah, right. I didn’t hear the whole thing, but it must have been pretty heated, because as this guy walks away, he turns around and screams to John, and another thing, you don’t know Galactus for shit!.
AG: John tends to get that sort of reaction. He’s a pretty outspoken guy.
BMB: Oh man. I think some people really go insane from this business,
especially if they only concentrate on work for hire stuff.
AG: Do you think the industry is getting better, in general?
BMB: Yes. I think people are starting to take risks and do something to
correct the problems. Basically, its because the industry was downhill in the first place. No one cared about comics or gave them any respect, so people said screw it and started to do more daring stuff. Image is doing it. Marvel is starting to do it more. I think it’s important to do books that are accessible to new readers, where you don’t have to have read 100 issues of something to follow along. Sci-fi shows don’t explain what a space ship is 20 times. They know that people know what it is. With Powers, we tried to do that. We know people know what super-heroes are. We didn’t need to set that up.
AG: How was your experience working with Marvel?
BMB: Marvel Knights is a blast. I tell you, Joe Quesada has a great head on his shoulders. He’s a very smart guy and he’s the reason those books don’t suck. I mean, take Kevin Smith and Daredevil. You know Kevin is a huge comic fan, so Joe asks if he wants to write a comic.
AG: What are your favorite reads now?
BMB: Hellblazer is great. I really get into Heavy Liquid and Transmetropolitan. Kabuki, of course. Scott Morse kicks me in the nuts. And I love the Oni books. I think they’re doing a great job both with the books and the way they market them.
AG: What do you mean?
BMB: Well instead of pushing all their books at once, they spread them out This gives each book a chance to get featured and some attention on its own, without competing against another Oni book. I think its a great idea.
AG: Besides Powers, Sam and Twitch, and Hellspawn, what else are you working on?
BMB: I have the Batman story in Batman Chronicles #21 that comes out this month. Its a six page short story called Citizen Wayne. Can you guess what its about?
AG: Is too subtle. I don’t get it.
BMB: We have the Daredevil arc that I’m writing and David Mack is painting, which is Daredevil 16, 17, and 18. That comes out in a couple of months. Ill also be doing a top secret Marvel Knights project with Rob Haynes at the end of this year.
AG: How about the movie projects? You’re doing an animated Jinx movie, right?
BMB: Yeah. I’m going to be writing it and directing it on some level. I doubt Ill direct the animation, since I have never done it before, but I’m jazzed about the idea. Basically there are all these creators taking their own stuff and putting it on the web. It’s full animation, too, not just flash. And then well probably put it on DVD, but you’ll be able to download it for free.
AG: And Torso?
BMB: We handed in the script. Well see what happens. We had a great time writing it, but there’s no sure fire way in getting it done. Todd is handling most of it now, so well see. Id love to have it happen.
AG: Could be another Fortune and Glory story?
BMB: The funny thing is we were talking about that. I mean, everyone has had these crazy stories, but a lot of people never talked about them. After
Fortune and Glory people were coming up to me and saying, I went through the same thing and didn’t realize how funny it was till I read about it happening to you.
AG: Everyone can relate to it.
BMB: Wed like to do an anthology version somewhere down the line, with different creators telling their horror stories. I would be like the Crypt-Keeper, introducing the stories at the beginning of the comic.
AG: By tomorrow, that rumor will be all over and most people will be
reporting it as fact.
BMB: God, these rumors.
AG: You’re apparently replacing Howard Mackie on the Spider-Man books with Paul Jenkins and you’ve become group editor as well.
BMB: That’s a new one.
AG: Do the rumors annoy you?
BMB: I am curious about them. Sometimes they’re so dead on right, I'm thinking, were you in the fucking meeting with us. I mean there was one story posted about how I was originally going to do Nick Fury for Marvel Knights and I don’t know how anyone found out about it. I eventually moved to Daredevil. But then there was this Ghost Rider rumor. I mean this guy must have pulled this thing right out of his ass. There was never any Ghost Rider book. I don't even like Ghost Rider. And of course the message boards were lit up the next day with questions about me doing Ghost Rider. So it does get a little crazy sometimes, but it fills my huge fucking ego with glee glee glee.
AG: And its starting again with Spider-Man.
BMB: I cant even say anything about that. But its like, a rumor gets started or leaked and all of a sudden you have people bitching about it before they even know any facts.
AG: Would you like to plug Sam and Twitch, Hellspawn, Powers, Daredevil or Jinxworld.com one more time?
BMB: Sure. Go to Jinxworld. Its the best message board on the web. The fans are great and its a lot of fun. And we've added a lot of new stuff. There's new Powers art, and some merchandise.
AG: What's your favorite shirt?
BMB: I like the Jinx shirt. My wife designed it, and I think its the coolest looking shirt. Were actually thinking of doing a full color shirt soon, too. It doesn’t even look comic-booky. You could wear it in public.
Well there you have it.
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