The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that comics writer and sometime artist Brian Michael Bendis “has signed a deal to write his first book. Titled Words for Pictures: The Art and Business of Graphic Novels, the non-fiction book will be published in 2013 by Random House and is designed to give those looking to break into comic writing a leg up.”
Bendis, the winner of five Eisner Awards, started out with crime and noir comics, but then moved into more mainstream books, and (his Wikipedia entry notes) “was the primary architect of the Ultimate Marvel Universe, launching Ultimate Spider-Man in 2001, on which he continues as writer to the present day. He relaunched the Avengers franchise with New Avengers in 2004, and has also written the Marvel ‘event’ storylines House Of M, Secret War, 2008’s Secret Invasion and 2009’s Siege.”
THR notes “as a way to pay his A-list success forward, Bendis began teaching a graphic-novel writing course Portland State University. Editors at Random House heard of his teachings and approached him to write a book.
“Bendis says he hears from many aspiring wordsmiths looking for information and advice, and it would be nice to just hand them a book and go ‘Here is everything I would tell you if we were hanging out.'”