"I used to pine to be a Dark Horse creator" Brian Michael Bendis on Dark Horse, Naomi, & creator-owned titles

In his 30+ years in comic books, Brian Michael Bendis has become a mainstay of the industry with the creation of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe introducing the likes of Miles Morales – who became a superstar in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, creating Alias, which would be adapted into Jessica Jones, and plenty of other achievements that would take paragraphs and paragraphs to list out.

Popverse spoke with Bendis about what’s coming next in his comic book career including his new partnership with Dark Horse for his Jinxworld line of comics, if he’ll continue work with DC following his run on Justice League and Superman, and if he had any regrets not working on a Fantastic Four flagship book during his time at Marvel.

Popverse: Brian, let us jump right in. Tell us about the origins of your team-up with Dark Horse for your creator owned titles.

Brian Michael Bendis: It goes waaaaay back. One of my heroes and mentors in comics is legendary Dark Horse editor, Diana Shutz. Moving to Portland 20 years ago, I have had a growing relationship with Mike Richardson and others over there. Plus, some of my best friends had hung their hats over there. David Mack’s Kabuki and much of Mike Oeming’s great library of stuff live happy and healthy at Dark Horse.

How has that experience been for you so far?

Dark Horse, on every conceivable level, really is the perfect fit for us and our content. In fact, we just heard word that we’re getting a sequel to our debut book Joy Operations.

Dark Horse was founded just as I was entering comics. I used to pine to be a Dark Horse creator. And most our comics felt like Dark Horse books to me - even back then.

Shifting gears to your Big Two work, following your wrap up on Justice League, do you have more plans with DC Comics?

Yes. We’re still working on Naomi Season Two and the epic Justice League Versus Legion of Superheroes: the Gold Lantern Saga. And we’re very excited about the surprises coming in both.

Also, Naomi is a TV show on the CW, and I’m hard at work on the Legion of Superheroes tv show for HBO Max!

But I too, like many of my peers, have been focused on new ideas, creator-owned and challenging projects outside of the shared superhero universes.

How does Jinxworld work behind the scenes? What do you do outside of writing, what does Alisa Bendis do, what is the set-up like?

Alisa runs the business. She’s the publisher and the president of the company. I don’t know how to do any of that. I don’t know how to pay people.