Brendan Wright spoke with Brian Michael Bendis at Stumptown last month on everything from reactions to his work to experimentation in his writing:
Wright Opinion: To start with, a lot of your pre-Marvel work was very experimental in the art and writing, and it seems that as a superhero writer you’ve brought that with you more than we often see. Do you consider yourself to be an experimental writer?
Brian Michael Bendis: Yes in the sense that we want to try new things. I’m a fan of any kind of storytelling that’s just trying new stuff. Even if you try too hard and fall on your ass, I’d rather do that then not try anything, alright? You think of Howard Chaykin or Matt Wagner, who just has ideas that look almost too big for the page, or sees the page in different shapes than other people do. And that’s what I’ve been inspired by and want to see. And every once in awhile you come up with a real, “Aw, no one’s thought of that!”
And at the same time, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that sometimes it’s more clever just to tell the story more clearly. Sometimes in the exuberance of youth you try stuff where you’re subconsciously trying to cover up something you think is bullshit in the story When I was younger, and this is dating myself, but before computers, a lot of black and white artists used zipatone, which was a sticker that you would put on the art that had black and white patterns, that printed clearly as line art. And a lot of my friends––and maybe a little bit me, too, when I was younger––were using that because the drawing was bad, the drawing was inferior. So you put stickers all over it and it would look better.
And sometimes experimentation, if it doesn’t further the story or help the storytelling, it’s a failure. So I really try to think, “I have this great idea to make everything look like stick figures or tell the story backwards”––I do a lot of time jumps––and I go, “Okay, does that help the story, or am I just being clever to be clever?”
May 15th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Brendan Wright seems to like Bendis’s writing. According to Word, the interview totaled 14,179 words. The interview was, unfortunately, didn’t touch on any solid criticism.
In his comments on exposition, Bendis implies that practically all exposition is bad, but he doesn’t distinguish between characters going out of their way to describe motives and situations and the writer using captions to describe characters and situations. The former is obviously bad; the latter can be as elegant in skillful use of words as any dialogue.
Bendis’s contention that he doesn’t use filler to stretch the page count is wryly amusing, if one looks at issues of MIGHTY AVENGERS #7-#9, for example. In MA #7-#8, practically the entire plot could be considered filler, in that the threat is artificially produced, nothing is at stake, and Iron Man is the only Avenger that acts to solve the problem; in MA #9, the filler is primarily art.
It’s unfortunate that Wright doesn’t give space to “Secret Invasion,” (SI) since a critic can already see serious defects in the storyline. All the back-and-forth about imposters (“You’re a Skrull!” “No, I’m not, but are you?”) is pointless when, according to the storyline’s own internal logic (?), any suspect could settle the question by nicking himself with a blade. If he bleeds human blood, he’s human.
The word “retcon” doesn’t appear in the interview, even though the device is the one Bendis has resorted to most often in his “Avengers” stories and is, of course, the foundation for “Secret Invasion.” Did Wright avoid touching on retcons because of the device’s bad reputation? Readers were particularly ill-served by the use of the retcon in SI #2, since one would have to know Mockingbird quite well to know that the miscarriage mentioned within never happened (to the best of my knowledge), and that the characterizations of Mock and Hawkeye as a couple never provided a point where it could have happened. Bendis is depicting both characters falsely.
Then there was the attempt to explain genetic engineering in NEW AVENGERS #40, which came off as the equivalent of a fifth-grader attempting to explain DNA manipulation to classmates, without knowing anything about genetics himself; the use of the “alien virus” in SI #1 and #2 as the equivalent of a magic wand to disable the human opposition, without knowing that viruses don’t damage hardware; in MA #13, the introduction of J.T., a superfluous character, since a modern-day Phantom Rider already exists; also in MA #13, claiming that Ares’s son Alexander is Phobos, when the mythological reference to Phobos by Greeks meant the being already existed, more than 2,000 years ago.
As a paean to Bendis, the interview succeeds very well, but the writer doesn’t deserve that.
SRS
May 16th, 2008 at 7:27 am
that’s a really interesting comment Steven. It leaves me wondering when I’ve seen a crtical, questioning interview with someone in the comic book industry. I can’t recall any. Typically they seem to be polite chats that give the interviewee a good chance to showcase himself without challenge.
Fans get criticized for our critical attitude - Maybe we’re that way because comic book journalism hasn’t matured to the point where it’s seriously representin the concerns of fans.