Total Sell Out

by Brian Michael Bendis

I like Bendis's work.  It's funny how saying that can seem controversial.  The man is pretty much the best selling comics writer working today, and so therefore, is open season for all kinds of internet hate and bad mouthing.  The truth is, he sells a lot for a reason.  Lately, I've found his stuff for Marvel to be a little lacking - it feels like he got his long Marvel U story through Siege, and ran out of ideas, but still had two Avengers books to write every month (I've never read Ultimate Spider-Man).  His Scarlet has been good, if a little bit off somehow, and since Powers has become almost an annual series, it's not worth talking about.

But I still like Bendis's work on the whole.  Reading Total Sell Out reminds me why.  This book compiles a ton of short pieces Bendis did over a long stretch of time, and for a variety of reasons.  We get a number of newspaper strips (but this must have been an independent paper, like Jim Mahfood's Phoenix Edition of his Stupid Comics), some short stories written by other writers (Warren Ellis, James D. Hudnall, and Mark Ricketts), a bunch of stories he did on his own, and some other odds and ends.

The pieces here, especially the collection of stories Bendis was told by other people, remind us just how good he is at dialogue, and at picking meaning out of random events (such as the story with the comedian who wants to quit because of an interview with John Cleese she saw on TV).  There are a number of times where this book made me laugh, which is always nice.

Now, Bendis's art is an acquired taste.  It's heavily photo-referenced and stiff, but I do like the consistency of his comics style (he experiments a lot more when he cartoons).  In all, this is a pretty good collection.  To be honest, I would be very happy to see Bendis try more material like this in the future, although I know it would never sell as well as the Avengers, and so is not likely to happen.