Say Anything singer and songwriter Max Bemis is no stranger to the world of comics. He debuted as a writer with Marvel in 2012, writing issue 14 of A+X before penning the Polarity and Evil Empire mini-series for Boom! Studios. This time around seems like a bigger deal, with Bemis adding to over 50 years of X-Men lore with the ongoing mini-series Worst X-Man Ever, which wraps up on June 29.

On the surface, mini-series star Bailey Hoskins is a lovable loser whose only known power is an ability to explode like a bomb. Turns out, our hapless, self-doubting star is as much a reflection of Bemis’ past insecurities as the lyrics of “Hate Everyone,” “Admit It!!!,” and other deeply personal Say Anything songs.

Bemis chatted with Myspace about his lifelong love of comics, the autobiographical nature of his writing, the ongoing emo revival and his long-term ambitions with Marvel.

How did the X-Men mini-series come about? Had you written comics in the past?

Yeah, I’d written a bunch of comics on my own that were my creation. Then I did a short story for Marvel about three or four years ago and sort of built a relationship with those guys. They’ve been reaching out to me, and this was the first thing that made total sense. It was a way to bring me deeper in the fold at Marvel.

There wasn’t really a concept in place. They just said they wanted to do an X-Men book. Originally, it was going to be under the imprint Marvel Knights, which is kind of where people go to write out of continuity stories. It’s generally weirder stories.

Did you grow up reading comics? Was it a passion you had alongside music?

It was my first passion, really. I’ve always been a big reader. Frankly, I was always reading more comics than books as a young kid, nine or 10 years old. Then I started reading really advanced comics because I didn’t know the difference. Some of them went over my head at the time. As I got older, they started to make more sense.

I got into music around 15 or 16 and was obsessed with that for four or five years, before I got back into comics. They’ve remained a huge part of my life since. I put them on par with music, as far as their importance to my life.

With X-Men, you are the right age to have watched the cartoon. Were you a huge X-Men fan?

I was, and that was huge for me. That might have been what got me into the comics—the Batman and X-Men animated series.

Those are still the two best superhero cartoons to this day.

I agree. Batman: the Animated Series was super great. That whole aesthetic is a big part of the whole canon…Harley Quinn and all of that stuff.

Worst X-Man Ever is a five part mini-series, right, with the final issue out next week?

Yeah, the whole thing has been released digitally. In stores, we’re up to the fourth one.

It being out as a whole digitally may answer this, but did you write the story all at once instead of reimagining it from issue to issue?

I think the overall arch, since it’s a miniseries, I wrote it at once. I started fleshing it out on the go. That’s how I like to write. I don’t like to be constrained to outlines and things like that. I knew how it’d end and key plot points.

So far, we’ve met Bailey, the main character. His parents passed away in a kind of funny but dark way—getting stepped on by a Sentinel. He’s an outcast among outcasts, in a way. He doesn’t really fit in. All these people around him are different in cool ways. What he has (as a mutant power) is literally self-destructive.

Yeah, he’s useless, pretty much.

What inspired you to create a seemingly useless X-Man?

I felt that way at his age, like I wasn’t edgy enough. I was certainly eclectic and neurotic. But I grew up in LA, so rather than having the problems of jocks who beat up the nerd…At that point, I was 16 in 1999 or 2000. The hipster was already becoming prevalent in Los Angeles before it sort of bled into the rest of the country. LA and New York is where things start like that.

At my school, the cool kids were the weirdo sons and daughters of famous people. Really keen into fashion and stuff like that. Being a dopey, idealistic kid was actually being weird in that setting. I always felt I was a little too old-fashioned, in a way, for the world. I was able to frame that using mutants, who were brought into the Marvel Universe to represent the outcasts and champion the beauty of that. If you were a mutant and sort of a normal kid, you might feel weird around these super cool, awesome-looking mutants. So I wanted to create a guy who is sort of a doofus. That’s Bailey’s shtick.

To the point I’m at, he thinks he’s worthless, but the bad guys seem to have an interest in him.

That’s how he sees it. There’s characters like Jubilee that really like Bailey, but he takes it for granted because he wants to be like them. Even though they like him and he is well-liked, he thinks he’s not well-liked. Whereas the bad guys know he’s pretty powerful, and they’re interested in him because he’s easily manipulated. He’s in an emotional place where he can be taken advantage of.

So the character is mostly autobiographical?

I’ve yet to be able to write a comic that wasn’t at least subtly autobiographical.

Even with Say Anything being emo, melodic punk, or whatever term you prefer, your lyrics are very expressive and very personal.

You can say the exact same thing about my place in the music industry. When we entered the scene, I had a similar experience being part of indie rock, punk rock, emo, or whatever that was. It was a mixture of being very idealistic and a lot of jaded people. Some people took advantage of us; I felt out of place and didn’t think I was good enough. A lot of weird emotions for a younger person. Now I’m more secure with where I’m at, but I still feel that way sometimes. It’s a normal thing to feel that way.

Is this autobiographical slant your preferred style of writing, be it a story or a song?

I think so. I definitely try to do otherwise. The furthest I’ve gotten away from it is probably Evil Empire, an ongoing series I did. But I felt there was a piece of me in those characters, and the struggle itself was based on my fears. I have trouble not putting part of me in what I do.

You’d mentioned feeling out of place when you first got music. Was there a moment when you felt vindicated?

It was around the time we put out our first record. I started meeting people who were heroes of mine growing up. They liked what I did, and they were good people. That was probably the biggest vindication. The night I first met Chris (Conley) from Saves the Day, who is one of my best friends, we found out we were one of his new favorite bands. They’re my favorite band, so we spent the whole night schmoozing. The more we became friends, the more we realized how similar we are. A lot of people have had that feeling of being an outcast in the scene.

I guess it’s important with depression and self-doubt to find out that the people you hold on high are humans, too, and have some of the same insecurities.

Then it starts to get crazier when you start to build an audience, and you get a sense that the audience shares your values and ideals. We’ve always been such an eclectic band that we’ve never fully broke into the mainstream, though we skirt the edge. Rather than being the type of band where kids know one song and it’s confusing if they like us because we look like male models and have one hit song, we don’t have to worry about that. I can look in the eyes of the people at shows and feel accepted in that way and feel I’m accepting them in that way.

Wrapping this up, is Worst X-Man Ever going to lead to you pitching more ideas to Marvel?

Definitely. I don’t want to say too much more, but definitely. It’s my ambition to be as much a comic book writer as a musician. As far as mainstream stuff goes, I love Marvel. As long as they’ll have me, I’d like to become more embedded into what they do.