Broken Frontier

“This week, I want you to write a career retrospective of Brian Michael Bendis.”
“You mean Bendis! The guy who signs his name with an exclamation point?”
“Yeah. Bendis!”
“You know what Elmore Leonard said about exclamation points?”
“No. But I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“He said you should only use two or three exclamation points for every 100,000 words.”
“What’s your point?”
“That maybe Bendis has never read Elmore Leonard.”
“Are you kidding? We’re talking about a noir fiction expert. This is the guy who wrote AKA Goldfish and Jinx.”
“Don’t forget Torso, that thing about Elliot Ness investigating those murders.”
“I always thought that was just a From Hell knockoff.”
“No. That was Bendis.”
“You’re right.”
“About what?”
“Anybody that into crime fiction must have read Elmore Leonard.”
“Maybe he just never read Elmore Leonard’s rules of writing.”
“That’s possible. He seems pretty sure of his own talent.”
“Who? Leonard?”
“No, Bendis!”
“There you go again with the exclamation points.”
“He’s making me do it.”
“Let’s try and keep focused here, would you?”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?”
“So start with his early career.”
“We did that already.”
“No. Earlier.”
“Oh, you mean like the five years he spent at the Cleveland Art Institute?”
“Wait a second.”
“What?”
“I thought Bendis was a writer.”
“He is. Mostly. But he’s an artist, too. In fact, did you know that he won the Cleveland Press Club’s Excellence in Journalism award?”
“For his writing.”
“No. For an illustration called Play Mystic For Me that appeared in Cleveland Magazine.”
“Now I’m really confused.”
“Don’t be. Bendis started as an artist. In fact, according to him, he worked every demoralizing caricature gig and every illo job he could get before he broke in over at Caliber comics with AKA Goldfish and Jinx.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just tell me what happened next.”
“Well, then he started moving up in the comics world, I guess you could say. He combined noir fiction with superhero stuff in Powers. Then he moved his stuff to Image.”
“That’s it!”
“There you go again.”
“Never mind the exclamation point. I just realized why this sounds so familiar.”
“Why?”
“Because of that other column you wrote. That one about Eric Powell and The Goon.”
“What about it?”
“Pretty similar story, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so. That’s the nature of the business.”
“How so?”
“You have to pay your dues. Everyone’s a fifteen year overnight success.”
“That’s for sure.”
“Most people got to know Bendis after he went to Marvel and created all those Ultimate titles and What If... titles and became one of the best-selling, most honored writers in the business. I mean: five freaking Eisner Awards?!”
“’Nuff said.”
“Clever.”
“I thought so.”
“But not clever enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you need some sort of an ‘A-ha!’ for the reader or the column is just going to be a boring recounting of facts. ‘First he wrote this, then he wrote that.’ Who wants to read that? I don’t.”
“Any suggestions?”
“I don’t know. I thought the Neil Gaiman thing about the Duran Duran book was pretty good.”
“Me, too.”
“Nothing like that for Bendis?”
“There is one thing.”
“What?”
“Did you know that Bendis was actually the first artist on Kabuki?”
“What?”
“It’s true. David Mack was only going to write it and Bendis was going to draw it. And that’s my point.”
“What is?”
“Friendship.”
“Quit being cryptic.”
“I’m not. Bendis and Mack were both working for Caliber comics when they met at a convention in Chicago. They weren’t famous. They were just two guys who loved comics and wanted to work together. Later, Mack recommended Bendis to Joe Quesada at Marvel. Ba-boom. The rest, as they say...”
“Please don’t.”
“What?”
“Finish that sentence. I get it. But I still don’t understand how this is your point.”
“There’s an old saying in Hollywood.”
“Hit me with it, Yoda.”
“’Don’t make any enemies on the way up because you never know who you’re going to need on the way down.’”
“That’s scary.”
“Hollywood’s a scary place.”
“Hey, didn’t Bendis write some books about going to Hollywood and all that?”
“Yeah. Fortune and Glory. Should be required reading for anyone who wants to work in comics or Hollywood. But you’re getting us off track again.”
“Sorry. Where were we?”
“I was talking about Mack and Bendis. How they met and how their friendship turned out to be so important for their careers. All I’m saying is that there’s a lot of unpublished talent out there and they should be thinking about the friendships they have. Who knows, they could be like Mack and Bendis.”
“Exactly.”
“I like it.”
“I’m glad.”
“So how are you going to write it?”
“I was thinking maybe like an extended dialogue.”
“Like a Bendis book.”
“No. I would never dare compare myself to Bendis.”
“I should hope not.”