On Target

By Leslie Hoffman  |  Illustration by Keith Bendis

When Keith Bendis gets a great idea, he goes ahead with it. The illustrator who created this month’s WHIRL cover — one of those great ideas — says that some of his best ideas have never been published. That’s saying a lot for an artist whose work has been commissioned by some of the top publishing houses for the past 30 years. In fact, you’re probably familiar with Bendis and may not even realize it.

The artist is from Carnegie, graduated from Chartiers Valley High School, and then matriculated Washington & Jefferson College, earning a degree in American History. He then earned a BFA in painting from Carnegie Mellon University. “I was never really much of a painter, though,” Bendis says. “I was always drawing cartoons for my friends, and that’s where my real interest was.”

Bendis moved to Philadelphia and became the political cartoonist for an underground newspaper. He moved to New York City in 1975 and began illustrating for publications like The Village Voice and The New York Times. “It just kept getting better and better,” Bendis says. He illustrated a version of the baby boomer cult classic The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle, which got him even more exposure. And, in 1983, Bendis became the illustrator for William Safire’s weekly “On Language” column in The New York Times, a job he held for the next eight years. From there, he began to work for most of the major magazines in New York, including Time, Newsweek, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated.

“Acquisitions” by Keith Bendis

Now, Bendis is moving in a new direction. He works in graphic facilitation, a field where he attends corporate meetings and illustrates what’s happening; Campbell’s, Philip Morris, Johnson & Johnson, and GlaxoSmithKline are some of the companies that have hired him. “It puts everyone on the same page,” he says.

His other love? Children’s books. Later this year, his first, Calvin Can’t Fly, will be published. The story is about a starling that just wants to read; he doesn’t want to learn to fly. The lesson? “The lesson is to be true to yourself and in the end things will hopefully work out,” Bendis says.

The illustrator is true to himself, constantly working on new ideas. The idea for the WHIRL cover came to him when he was talking to Christine Tumpson, WHIRL’s editor in chief. He says working on ideas with a Valentine’s Day theme was fun. “The real high comes in the creative process, coming up with a great idea and making a successful illustration from it. Seeing the published piece is the icing on the cake.”

Keith Bendis, keithbendis.com.
   

 




On the Cover:  
Original artwork by Keith Bendis

Register to win the original cover art in a drawing on February 28.