Posted in: Comics | Tagged: brian bendis, Comics, entertainment, fox, frank cho, marvel. marvel comics, powers, shipping, x-men

Brian Bendis' Cartoon At Fox, Why X-Men Should Just Be Kissing Each Other And What's Up With Frank Cho

Published Fri, 11 Apr 2014 12:00:47 -0500

by Rich Johnston

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Yesterday, we ran a long interview between Bleeding Cool reporter Jeremy Konrad and Brian Bendis. You should read it right now.

But there were a few highlights I wanted to dwell upon. Talking about the Powers TV show,

It is our hard-R show, and that's what we wanted to be. In fact the show is actually a little naughtier than the book is even, so I couldn't be happier, the spirit of it is right on the money.

Live action monkey sex, here we come! Then there was discovering what the X-Men readers really want to read.

I said to Marts "You know, we do all these things, like The Trial of Jean Grey was really hard to write, and all anybody cares about is Kitty and Peter Quill hooking up." Like I wrote nothing else [laughs]. Shipping after shipping after shipping, an X-Men event should be nothing but X-Men kissing each other. No fights or explosions, just who hooks up with who. It took me like a year to figure that out! All they care about is the hair, and who is kissing who.

He talked about his plans for the Last Will And Testament Of Professor Xavier,

A lot of people had questions about the Brotherhood after Battle Of the Atom that I guess we just didn't have the pages for. Now I can show you where Xavier came from, where Raze came from, and get a good sense of these new characters and what is driving them

It brought up a few questions on Tumblr, including about a cartoon series he has lined up at Fox.

Anonymous asked: Just finished reading your new interview on Bleeding Cool. You mention an animated series on Fox. I think I follow your work pretty closely, and I'm not sure I've heard of this, did I miss something?

Bendis: I've mentioned it here a couple of times. I'm not actively promoting it because there's nothing to promote as it is in development i.e. being written. it is just a very interesting project that I'm very proud of and very excited about but nothing to report until there's something to report. it is an original idea not based on any existing graphic novel or comic book

As well as a little clarification of one point.

Anonymous asked: According to the Bleeding Cool interview you did, you and Mike Marts are "restarting" the X-men. Does that mean that soon all the events that preceded your run will become out of current continuity? If so, I'm done with the X-men faster than you can say "the new 52".

Bendis: That was a slight misunderstanding or misquote, what I said was that soon a pretty big bomb is about to drop in X-Men universe that will shake things up to a truly profound place. it's so good that Mark Waid was physically upset when he heard about it :-)

Bendis talks about an earlier story we reported, about Frank Cho working on the upcoming Guardians Of The Galaxy annual. He says,

"What I had for Kevin is perfect for Frank, and he was thrilled to jump on. I am thrilled to be working with him again! As long as he doesn't wait until the last minute and bitch about it on twitter and Facebook and Rich writes columns about it [laughs], insinuating I was late with the script when I was never late with the script. Anyway [laughs harder] I love his work, I think he is one of the best illustrators in comics, and to work with him on and off over the years is awesome."

Well, I had complaints from more than one creator over late scripts. Just not as public as Frank was. Cho is a little more diplomatic this time, telling me,

I'm excited to be back with Bendis again. Brian has always been a fantastic and constant writer, and he doesn't disappoint with this "Guardian of the Galaxy" book. From what I have read so far, this story is definitely in my comfort zone and the fans will love it. I'm gonna do my best to channel Wally Wood and Jim Steranko for some of the sequences.

Emphasis on "so far"…

Still, glad to see Bendis having so much fun. And you can see the TED Talk he mentioned in the original interview right here.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufc_3VZRi_Q[/youtube]

Photo by writer Will Henderson (@avesdad)

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