I am Kyle's self-indulgence

Brian Michael Bendis is making quite a name for himself. After receiving critical acclaim for his true crime comics, he began working on Daredevil, for which he has received yet more critical acclaim, becoming probably the best writer on the title since Frank Miller. Although Daredevil has always been my favorite comic book superhero, for budgetary reasons, I have not read much of Bendis' work with the character. Thanks to the interlibrary loan program within Missouri's Universities, though, I was recently able to procure two of his other graphic works.

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The first book I read was a story from Bendis' series Alias, illustrated by Michael Gaydos. This series takes place in the Marvel Comics universe and features a third-rate superhero who has quit the heroing business to become a private investigator. The book also contains cameos by and references to other lame heroes like Ant-Man, Speedball, and Spider-Women II & III. The real hook is the way that Bendis is able to breathe new life into these forgotten characters. Bendis pursues absolute realism in his comic, revealing the funny, tragic, and mundane humanity of the characters.


Similarities between Brian Michael Bendis and Frank Miller abound. Both are artist-writers who have shown a particular talent for gritty crime stories, and both, as mentioned above, have brought terrific writing to Daredevil. They also bear stylistic similarities. Frank Miller employs what is often referred to as a cinematic style of graphic storytelling, in that he often relies almost entirely on pictures to convey mood and story. This is best demonstrated in Sin City. If Miller's comics read like a noir action film, then Bendis' Alias most closely resembles a Kevin Smith movie (in fact, this comic is what I actually expected Kevin Smith's Daredevil to be like). Bendis has a knack for snappy, yet realistic dialogue, and his pages are absolutely full of it. In one issue, he abandons the use of word balloons and simply overlays screenplay-style dialogue on top of David Mack's painted artwork. At other times, he constructs chains of word balloons running down the entire length of the page, parallel to the action.


Given the cinematic qualities of Bendis' writing in Alias, I was not at all surprised to find out that he has taken a crack at Hollywood filmmaking. His foray into screenwriting is hilariously documented in the second graphic novel of his I read, Power and Glory: A True Hollywood Comic Book. When one of his comics started to receive the attention of movie companies, Bendis enlisted the help of a producer friend to help him in the process of writing, pitching, and selling a screenplay. In the introduction, Paul Dini calls it "an astute, pinfully funny, and all too real account of the struggle and insanity that awaits 99.9% of the creative people when they first get involved with Hollywood." I can't vouch for the realism of it, but it is very, very funny.



From what I have read so far, Brian Michael Bendis is a very talented and prolific writer, and worthy of all the praise that has been lavished upon him. He is definitely the best of a new generation of writers making sophisticated comics for discriminating readers. I highly recommend any fan of comics check out his work. I give both Alias and Power and Glory 5/5.