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Brian Michael Bendis

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Brian Michael Bendis.

Brian Michael Bendis (born August 18 1967) is a American comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has also won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards and one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics.

For over the last five years, Brian’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic sales chart.

Brian is one of the premiere architects of Marvel comic’s Ultimate line of comics. A line of comics specifically created for the new generation of comics reader. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-man since it’s best selling launch, and has also written Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate X-men, Ultimate Marvel Team Up, and Ultimate Six.

He is creator of the JINX line of crime comics. This line has spawned the graphic novels GOLDFISH, FIRE, JINX, TORSO (w/ Marc Andreyko) and TOTAL SELL OUT. Brian’s projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle award nominated “POWERS” (w/Mike Oeming) from Marvel’s new creator owned imprint ICON, and the Hollywood tell all “FORTUNE AND GLORY’ from ONI press, which Entertainment Weekly both gave an “A.”

Brian is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar winner Charleze Theron attached to star and produce. Brian was the co-executive producer and series pilot writer for MTV’s recent CGI animated Spider-man show. Brian is the recipient of the Cleveland Press ‘Excellence in Journalism’ Award was named “Best Writer of the Year.” by Wizard Magazine and Comic Buyer’s Guide for three consecutive years.

He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Alisa, his daughter Olivia and his dogs Shroeder and Buster.

Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series such as A.K.A. Goldfish, Jinx, and Torso, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics superhero books such as Ultimate Spider-Man. He is also known for his work on Daredevil, Alias/The Pulse, Avengers/New Avengers, and the upcoming Mighty Avengers.

Biography

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. 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.

Early works

File:Bendisjinx.jpg
Jinx.

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. 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 the Cleveland Torso Murderer. In 1999, he won his first Eisner Award, "Talent Deserving of Higher Recognition". He also worked on two properties owned by Todd McFarlane: Sam and Twitch and Hellspawn but left under a cloud of controversy after trying to quit the latter in order to concentrate all his energies on the former. 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.

2000s: Superhero work and Marvel Comics

While working for Caliber Comics, Bendis met and became best friends with fellow comic book creator David Mack before either had become famous. The two became friends and in 2000, Mack helped Bendis to land a position at Marvel Comics, recommending him to Joe Quesada; then editor of the Marvel Knights line, and soon to be Marvel's editor-in-chief).

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Ultimate Spider-Man.

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, which launched in 2000 and became a huge hit, exposing Bendis to a much larger audience.

Bendis next took over as writer of Daredevil in 2001. The run garnered favorable comparisons to Frank Miller's legendary run in the early 1980s and received two Eisner Awards in 2003 (Best Continuing Series and Best Writer). The main storyline of his run dealt with the Kingpin being overthrown and Matt Murdock's identity being outed by a tabloid. The storyline culminated with Matt finally becoming the Kingpin in an attempt to rid Hell's Kitchen of its crime and getting arrested and imprisoned on Riker's Island. Bendis also introduced Milla Donovan, Matt's blind girlfriend, and Alexander Bont; an aging crimelord who had faced Daredevil in his early days as superhero.

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 created a stand-in character in the form of Jessica Jones, a private investigator/washed-up super-heroine who was retroactively introduced as an honorary Avenger circa the period of Avengers #181-200.

Marvel launched the MAX imprint in 2001, with Bendis's Alias being the first title of the new imprint. The first issue drew a large amount of controversy for its prolific use of the word "fuck" and a controversial scene where Jones solicits and receives anal sex from her on-again/off-again boyfriend Luke Cage. The anal sex scene became a running joke amongst comic fandom; perceived as the most identifying moment of the series.

Relaunched as The Pulse, it moved Jessica Jones to the staff of the Daily Bugle where she worked as a freelance writer for the paper. Its first arc had the Green Goblin's identity exposed as his sanity decreases and he murders several people in his office. In the end, it was Jessica Jones and Luke Cage who not only brought Osborn to justice but also unmasked him in front of the world.

In 2004, Bendis took over Avengers. His first story arc was Avengers Disassembled, a loosely designed crossover which sold very well but was highly controversial among the Avengers fanbase as Bendis killed off many fan favorites such as Vision and Hawkeye. It dealt with the growing mutual distrust among the Avengers and the beginning of the New Avengers.

Bendis also wrote a fourth installment of Secret War in 2004. It set up one of the New Avengers' main arcs in terms of the installation of a new anti-superhero SHIELD commander in the wake of Nick Fury being forced to go into hiding at the end of Secret Wars IV.

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Daredevil.

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

In 2005, Bendis wrote the major company-wide Marvel Comics crossover House of M which dealt with the fallout from Avengers Disassembled in which the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver create a utopia for mutants in which mutants are the dominant species and Magneto is ruler. It ended with Scarlet Witch severely reducing the number of mutants from millions to a mere 198.

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. [1] [2]

Writer profile

Bendis' writing style is characterized by an emphasis on dialogue and character and protracted story buildup.

It has been said that he possesses massive behind-the-scenes power at Marvel that has not been seen since Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee's regime in the early 1990s, although what this means or how he exercises this power has not been made clear.

First, Bendis is known for his trademark style. He often lets his characters talk in rapid fire "ping-pong" word-exchanges. He often uses up whole pages with relatively few words, and repeats identical panels throughout a page. When the viewpoint character is alone, Bendis also often uses long monologues.

Second, he is known for the subdued pace of his story arcs. Especially when writing a longer story arc (i.e. six or seven issues.

Bendis has revitalized several relatively obscure old characters and brought them to prominence. Examples include Luke Cage and Spider-Woman. He has also been criticized for killing characters, such as Hawkeye, Scott Lang, and the Vision.

Trivia

  • Bendis is known for extremely sarcastic and profanity-filled responses (which many readers thoroughly enjoy) to comments from fans in the letters column of his comic books and on his internet message boards.
  • Brian has won five prestigious EISNER awards, including ‘Best Writer of the year’ two years in a row.
  • Brian is the recipient of the Cleveland Press ‘Excellence in Journalism’ Award was named “Best Writer of the Year.” by Wizard Magazine and, Comic Buyer’s Guide for three consecutive years.
  • Brian has recently entered the world of video games with the successful launch of Activision’s ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN which won the E3’s people choice award.
  • Bendis has been mentioned at least twice on The O.C. and is close friends with show writer Allen Heinberg, helping him land work at Marvel.
  • Bendis had been known to offer readers their money back if they disliked any comic he wrote (on the condition that the comics be mailed to him).
  • 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.
  • Bendis' work has been referenced in the song "Powers" by singer Brodie Foster Hubbard.
  • Bendis enjoys Geraci's pizza in Cleveland so much that he actually freezes several boxes to take home to Oregon
  • Before writing comics professionally, Bendis used to work in a comic book store in Cleveland.

Cameo appearances

File:Bendisultimatecameo.jpg
Brian Michael Bendis' cameo from Ultimate Spider-Man.

Bibliography

Created and owned by Bendis

Image Comics

Marvel Comics

DC Comics

References

Preceded by Daredevil writer
2001 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Daredevil writer
2001–2003 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Daredevil writer
2004–2006 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Avengers writer
2004–present 		Succeeded by
Current
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