By Blake Garris

It's been over two years since we spoke with Say Anything's Max Bemis. In that timeframe things can change drastically in one's life, career, and even comic tastes. And for Bemis all of these things are true. Since we spoke he's gotten married (to Eisley's Sherri DuPree), Say Anything's on a new label (Equal Vision) and about to release a new album (Anarchy, My Dear), and his graphic novel collection has grown even bigger than it already was.

We decided to catch up with Bemis again to see what difference two years really makes for a comic book fan. He still loves Captain America, he's still working on his own graphic novel, and he’s got some suggestions for some Marvel Comics you should be reading if you aren’t already.

Marvel.com: To begin, let’s talk about your new album.

Max Bemis of Say Anything

Max Bemis: In certain ways it’s a traditional punk rock record. And the past few records have kind of been about me finding myself, whereas this one’s kind of like I’ve found myself, now what do I want to do with my life and how do I want to affect the world? And obviously I see a lot of things in society and the world around me that I think need to be changed and kind of destroyed and start anew, even if it’s on an internal level. There’s a lot going on right now with those kinds of things in a very literal sense with Occupy and all that stuff. But to me I wrote the record a little bit more about changing your heart and your soul and taking control of your life and rejecting the mind control. But it can extend to political beliefs as well. It’s still run through a very Say Anything filter of dark humor, and [it’s] somewhat ironic, I guess, in certain ways. But it does come from the heart.

Marvel.com: Talk to us about this tour you’re on now.

Max Bemis: This one is the second acoustic tour I’ve ever done and we’re really lucky and privileged that they’ve both done really well and sold out most of the shows. And more importantly, the way that they feel, it’s like a whole other thing than a Say Anything show because it’s so stripped down. So the energy of the type of people that come to see us is pretty insane. I’d like to think that they’re experiencing my energy and I’m experiencing their energy on a very primal level without all the noise and the layers and the showmanship. But it’s still there and it’s that same spirit underneath. So it’s very interesting to see, and I think it’s something I’ll hopefully be privileged to keep doing for the rest of my career.

Bucky as Captain America

Marvel.com: Will Say Anything be touring anytime soon?

Max Bemis: Yeah, we’ve got some touring stuff coming up next year around when the record comes out. It’s going to be a very heavy touring year for us next year for sure.

Marvel.com: Talk to us about Song Shop.

Max Bemis: Song Shop is basically something I open once or twice a year for the past two or three years. And it’s a system that I run with my merch company, MerchDirect. There’s a website [where] you buy a song from me and I write you a song based on whatever you want. It can be about you or a loved one or a situation you’re going through. Literally anything. I will write about anything. There hasn’t been one situation where I was like “I won’t do it.” And then I send you an MP3. Actually right now we have a whole crazy system where it gets uploaded to a server and you can go online and download it and you can change your description anytime. After this run I will have done 2,000 songs. And they come with a phone call.  I give you a call sometime after I do the song and say hi. It’s just my way of kind of stripping away the pretentiousness of being in a band and saying, “what is the interaction between someone who’s appreciating music and someone who’s making it.” To me you can relate to the song, and how could you relate anymore than if it’s written about you? That’s where I sort of came up with that idea. And it’s been awesome so far; I don’t see myself ever stopping to do it. But I can’t really do it that much, I have to kind of close it. It sells out really quick when we open it. I can only do it a couple times a year at most; the last few years it’s been like once a year. But I love it. It opened a few months ago so it’s closed now. It should be opening up again the spring or early summer of 2012.

Marvel.com: Since you last spoke to us, two years ago, what’s changed as far as your comic tastes go?

The Death of Ultimate Spider-Man

Max Bemis: To be honest, it’s funny. It’s more of a very rapid cycling thing when it comes to comics because I go through phases on almost a weekly basis or a monthly basis, more than “this year I like this writer” or “this year I wanna read this kind of comic.” I’m so intense about it. I read them so much that the normal phases you see a comic fan go through, which they all do, it kind of happens to me very quickly. A few things that are different: I guess I’m a little more discerning, which is unfortunate just because you can’t help it when you read so many books. And I feel like I’m a little more jaded, but at the same time I’m more enthusiastic about the craft than I ever have been. But you can’t help it. It’s sort of like when I was a kid before I started playing music, I was just wide eyed and wanted to hear everything and would approach everything without any skepticism. Now I’m still reading everything, but I can’t help but have my own little fickle annoying comic fan-isms. You become that cliché the more into it you get unfortunately.

As I’ve said before, Marvel is my home. It’s what I grew up reading; it’s innately tied into me. The nature of how Marvel approaches telling stories [appeals to me]; they’re very character-based, and there’s a lot more of a real world setting.

Marvel.com: Since you tend to read graphic novels and omnibuses more than single issues, how do you avoid spoilers?

Max Bemis: It’s so hard. It’s been harder for me because I’m so sick of music press. Let me put it this way, there’s very few music publications or websites that I can go to and not get really annoyed and stressed out by. Whereas when I go to Comic Book Resources or Newsarama, I don’t get stressed out. So I find myself drawn to them, and they put me in a good mood, but [there are] literally spoilers constantly. They’re not going to not post it. It’s their job. So it is harder but if I see it in the headline don’t go there unless I need to know. And to be honest I’m so into the writing and the art form that knowing that [Ultimate] Spider-Man died, it didn’t really… I mean it was a profound thing, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying the book. To me it’s more about the writing and the experience of reading it.

Ultimate Comics Ultimates

Marvel.com: What makes you like graphic novels more?

Max Bemis: [When] I was a kid, I would have to save up weeks and weeks to get one trade, when trades were kind of first becoming prominent. Just the feel of it in your hand is more like a book, and since I grew up reading books I love the heaviness. I’m a sucker for big hardcovers, and the flimsiness of a single issue kills me. So on a very shallow aesthetic level, that stuff I love. And I love that a lot of times they’ll be oversized. Marvel has a great program with oversized books and doing a lot of deluxe books. I think nowadays--maybe it’s because of how the market is swinging--books are written in these at least six-issue arcs, in the super hero world especially, where it’s geared towards that. It feels like a whole story being told. And I’m reading so many books and my attention span is so crappy that I can’t imagine reading so many stories on a monthly basis. I don’t know how people do it and remember what happened the month before. It’s unfortunate because I know it affects the market, and some books go out of business because not enough people are picking them up until then. I feel terrible about it, but I mean I buy so many trades and hardcovers that I don’t really feel that bad because I’m supporting the industry in some regard.

Marvel.com: Captain America and Iron Man were your favorite characters the last time we talked. Has that changed any?

Max Bemis: Yeah, new Cap. Bucky was big for me. It’s so hard for me to say [who’s] my favorite characters because I’m so obsessed with writers. It really depends on who’s handling them, you know what I mean? So I don’t know if my taste in characters has necessarily changed, but there are certain books that I have definitely gotten more into since we’ve last spoke.

Marvel.com: Have your favorite writers change at all, then?

S.H.I.E.L.D. by Jonathan Hickman

Max Bemis: No. It’s funny,  even though I’ve grown to read so many varying comics and have become aware of so many writers and my tastes have changed, honestly the top ten have not really shifted that much. Like Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Ed Brubaker, Brian Bendis, Matt Fraction. Those are top five, and it definitely doesn’t change. Those are the people that got me back into comics, so maybe that’s what it is, that I can’t really get over it. There are some new writers that I would say are climbing the ranks. [Jonathan] Hickman is big for me, and Nick Spencer. Both those guys are really exciting to me, and I think maybe over time they’ll crack [my] top ten.

[Hickman’s] a genius. He did S.H.I.E.L.D., he did SECRET WARRIORS, now he’s doing a lot of stuff in the Ultimate Universe which unfortunately I haven’t gotten to read because it hasn’t been collected yet. But he did work on ULTIMATE FALLOUT with Spencer and Bendis, and that was awesome. It got me really excited about the Ultimate Universe coming up.

Marvel.com: What else are you reading right now?

Max Bemis: Again, getting the beginnings of these new Ultimate [books] is big for me. Obviously I’m always reading the Bendis’ Avengers stuff, and Nick Spencer’s stuff that he started to do over there. I mean everything that comes out, I read. It’s sad. It’s like a sick obsession. [I love] CASANOVA by Fraction and CRIMINAL, the Icon [books]. There are so many. Literally any Marvel book that gets collected, I read. Literally.

Powers

Marvel.com: Do you have anything you’d recommend to people to get them into comics?

Max Bemis: Yeah, actually this is something to mention. I started a Twitter that’s just me once in a while throwing out my thoughts about comics. It’s @maxcomics on Twitter. And I’ve actually been asked this a few times but I think [there are] two that I would go with. Y: The Last Man would be one of them because it’s so accessible. It’s basically like a TV show, one of those great HBO shows like The Sopranos or something in comic book form. And yet at the same time it really gives you an idea of the ideal pacing and great art of the medium. So it’s kind of like a gateway drug in that respect. But I think POWERS is also a really cool place to start for people who have a sort of a superficial idea about super heroes and what they’re about. In many ways it sends up and is a satire of that. You don’t have to be involved in any of the continuity to understand why it’s funny or why this group is kind of like The Fugees or why this person kind of resembles Superman. So I think those two series are a really great place to start.

Marvel.com: What’s the status of the comic you’ve been writing?

Max Bemis: There are a few ideas I’ve been tossing around, but every time I feel like I’m about to really start writing, music kind of flairs up and something happens, like around the time that I was going to start really fleshing out doing the book. It’s something that I won’t half ass cause my passion for comics is on par with my passion for music, if not more to be honest. Every time I almost do it, I get the feeling like I want to be working on music. And there’s a lot going on. But now we’ve kind of got a new situation set up, we’re on a new label and we’re kind of easing into where we’re going to be for the next hopefully really long time with the band. And I think once that’s a little more solidified, I’ll be able to bring this new passion into my life. Also, it doesn’t hurt that I read about five to ten graphic novels a day. So the more I read, the better I think my book will be eventually, hopefully. [Laughs] Or it’ll just suck. But it’s going to be better than it would be, even if it does suck.

Marvel.com: Besides comics, what else do you nerd out about?

Brian Bendis' Avengers

Max Bemis: I guess a really good film is good for me. But that waned when I got obsessed with comics. I get really nervous when I meet people that I respect, so I guess I’m a total nerd in that regard. A couple of comic writers have tweeted at me since I’ve been doing the Twitter thing, and I freak out to my wife. “Nick Spencer tweeted at me” or “David Mack tweeted at me!” I flip out like a total nerd. I’ve never grown out of the feeling of being slightly intimidated by people I respect.

Marvel.com: Any funny stories in relation to that?

Max Bemis: There have been tons of them. Growing up, and still to this day, Saves The Day is my favorite band. I had done everything that an obsessed fan would do. Covering their songs and going to their shows and waiting to sort of say hi for one second and then run away. It just so happened that we ended up playing a CMJ show with Saves The Day once things kind of started picking up with Say Anything. I remember walking into the room and they were on stage sound checking and Chris [Conley] turned to me and he started playing one of our songs. That was probably the biggest nerd moment of my life. It just goes to show that you may feel like you’re never going to meet this person, [but] be careful, because you literally could end up in the same room with them. And he knew everything. Ge became one of my best friends, he is one of my best friends, [and I had to later admit], “by the way, I would stalk your website and I covered your music and know everything about your life and now you’re one of my friends. So it’s a little weird.” So just be careful, because they’re just people and you may end up in a situation where you’re actually on par with them, and it gets a little awkward. [Laughs]

Fear Itself

Marvel.com: Anything else Marvel-wise you’d like to talk about?

Max Bemis: I’m really excited about the new Ultimate Universe and those collections coming out. It’s so funny, real comic nerds must look down on me so much because I haven’t even gotten to read FEAR ITSELF. So I can’t wait for that hardcover to come out and read all the tie-ins. I’m excited that they handed over the reigns to Matt Fraction to do a bigger event. I would love, just as a suggestion, [to see] Ed Brubaker do an event book like that. I mean he hasn’t really gotten a chance to have his own Secret Invasion-esque thing. And then any of the new writers, eventually once they become more recognized, it would be awesome to see. I really think Nick Spencer is the best writer that Marvel’s picked up in the past five to 10 years. He is ridiculous and just exciting and he fits Marvel so well. So I’m glad that they snapped him up.

For more information on Max Bemis and Say Anything, visit their website www.sayanythingmusic.com. You can also follow Max on Twitter: @maxbemis for his personal page and @maxcomics for his comic book suggestions. Be on the lookout for their new album Anarchy, My Dear out on Equal Vision Records in March.