Bendis On Reviving Jinxworld and Finding New Collaborators at DC

Brian Michael Bendis made a splash at DC Comics with his take on Superman and the now-running Man of Steel series. But the writer won't be stopping at superheroes.

This August sees the return of Bendis' Jinxworld line of comics: the overarching name for his various creator-owned series that in some cases predate his blockbuster run as an exclusive Marvel writer. Late summer sees the arrival of returning series Scarlet with artist Alex Maleev as well as new Jinxworld releases Pearl with Michael Gaydos and Cover with David Mack. And the near future will see Bendis reunite with his longtime partner Michael Avon Oeming for more Powers and United States of Murder Inc.

With a full slate of titles revving up for regular release, CBR spoke with Bendis about how his creator-owned ambitions, how DC Comics is proving a different publishing partner than any previous home for Jinxworld, why the company has changed his approach to artistic collaborators on Superman and beyond and what his next imprint will shape up to be.

CBR: Brian, we spoke earlier about how you fit into this "DC machine," and a big part of this move for you is the reestablishment of the Jinxworld books. Marvel obviously was very good to you over the years – creating Icon as an imprint for guys like you and Mark Millar and Ed Brubaker. But it always felt very much like they said, "Okay, you're working on Marvel Universe books. We'll print your creator-owned books too, but it's on you to do the heavy lifting." On the other hand, Vertigo and the like have always been very different. Do you feel you have a better balance now between your superhero stuff and creator-owned?

Brian Michael Bendis: This is a very exciting part of the partnership that we're developing. A lot of people are focusing on Superman – as well they should – but behind the scenes we're very excited about the level of support they're offering. Marvel was great to me, and they even started Icon so I would have a home for my books! I can't express to you how great that is. I felt unsafe about their future where I was, and Marvel made me safe and made me whole. But in general over the years, yeah. There's just not much in it for Disney to promote these books because they don't own them, but they do own Spider-Man. They would publish lovingly all the time whatever we wanted to put out.

But when I met with [DC Co-Publisher] Dan DiDio for the first time, he said, "Listen. You need to refocus your creator-owned work. I want more Powers. I want more Scarlet. I want more Brilliant. I want to create a situation where you can do this. At Marvel, you were self-publishing through them. Here, you're going to get the whole machine. It's the whole DC marketing and social media blitz. We're going to publish these as if they were our books. It's just like Vertigo books that we love and we own. It'll be a meaningful partnership." And that is what they've done.

What that gave us was an almost unheard of chance to get our shit together. We sat down, reestablished our schedules, rearranged everyone's schedules and got it going. And on top of that, DC brought Alex [Maleev] over. They brought David [Mack] over. Mike [Avon Oeming] was already over. They sat down and did deals with all of them. So right now we're working on everything. Alex Maleev is painting Scarlet. David Mack is doing Cover. Michael Gaydos is going Pearl. Michael Avon Oeming just finished an entire Powers graphic novel and is knee-deep on Murder, Inc.

All the wheels are back on the wagon, and we're going to be coming out strong and swinging with new stuff. This is stuff that people were liking and buying, but we were not shipping as often as we should have. So now we're going back to being professional comic book people and shipping like we should. [Laughter]

And I do feel bad! I never meant to get behind on Powers or any of these. It's just that the TV show was this enormous thing that took up so much time. I'd be working on Powers sometimes for an entire day and then feel like, "I've really given a lot of myself to Powers." But meanwhile, nobody saw any of it! So that was part of the mistake that I made. I've heard from retailers going, "Get your shit together and get the books out." And with DC coming on, that's what we're going to do.

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It seems like your move to DC is going to be a shift in terms of collaborators. Those Jinxworld guys you've been with forever, but of late your Marvel work has been drawn by the likes of Sara Pichelli and David Lopez and others who are all staying there. Have you been looking at the DC roster and saying, "Who can I match up with"?

Oh yeah. You've already seen it. That's what Man of Steel is. You never in your heart go, "Oh, I'm going to work with José Luis García-López." Because I was working at Marvel, and he never, ever, ever worked there. Him and Brian Bolland – never! So you'd never think about them. And so as soon as I came over, I started to ask, "Is he around? What is he doing?" It was super sweet because a lot of these artists I wanted were really in demand. And I didn't want to come in like some people thought it was going to be like when I came over to DC and just grab everybody and ruin other peoples' fun.

Instead, a lot of things were offered to me right off the bat like "Action Comics #1000: you and Jim Lee." Like, that's not something I was going to ask for. [Laughter] It's not, "Can I have the biggest of everything?" And I love Jim Lee. We've been talking at conventions and parties for years and years. We talked about intercompany stuff that never came together. But you could tell even from those talks that beyond his being a great artist...there was an energy to him. "I like the way you think!" That kind of thing. And now that I've come over, I was happy to find that he felt the same way about me. So he stopped what he was doing and drew my story in #1000. I was completely over the moon about it, and then once he turned his pages in, he said, "Okay, let's do it again." So we're going to do something else together. It's really special.

So I got Jim Lee, and I asked for José García-López. I was shocked he was available. And then from there, we started talking about Man of Steel as compared to what John Byrne did [in his '80s reboot.] That was "The John Byrne Show," and I thought, "I don't want to do that. I want to come in here and express my thoughts on Superman with the help of these artists. They'll help me get there." And Dan was so right about this. He came in and said, "In the first issue, the person I want to put you with is Ivan Reis. I just feel that you two are going to hit it off, and he's going to give you what you need." He even referred to a story I've told about how Mark Bagley and I were put together a few years ago. Dan thought in a similar way that we'd bring out the best in each other. I thought, "Okay, I appreciate your thinking. Let's see how nuts you are." And he was right. Right away.

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Overall, what's the thing that no one knows about your DC deal that you're most excited to get out and into the world?

Oh, it's the imprint! We've got the imprint coming from DC later this year that Alisa, my wife, and I are curating. It's a handful of books – some of which I'll be doing, but I'm also bringing in creators that I love. Some of these are people I've never worked with before. Some of these are people who were shocked to find out I knew their name. And we've gotten the greenlight on the books.

It's an imprint that will be very different from the others at DC. It's very different from Young Animal. That was a specific voice. Ours is going to have a specific voice but be more mainstream in a way. The artist I'm working with on that book is another person I've never worked with, and it's someone where when I told people... I'll say this: when I told Matt Fraction who was drawing this book, he went, "Shut the f---!" [Laughter] People have been talking about Superman, but this is really exciting. I know I sound like a vague, hypey person, but that's all I can say for now.

But it all speaks to the partnership. As great as Marvel was, I never even thought about doing something like this at Marvel. It's great that DC has this situation where certain creators can carve out a little corner and express themselves beyond their talents as creators.