The poet and author Malcolm Bennett, who has died aged 56 from as yet unexplained causes, used his compressed, aggressive, comic book literary style to create the pulp magazine Brute! with the artist Aidan Hughes in 1984. A darkly comic, noir-inspired graphic magazine, Brute! garnered Bennett a wide audience that included Kazuo Ishiguro, Keith Waterhouse and Vivian Stanshall.
Brute!, which included Bennett’s classic creation Jim Mallett, a psychotic bene-fits fraud investigator, brought chuckles to bloodbaths, as Quentin Tarantino would do in film later, and readers found themselves entertained by subjects that were theoretically beyond the pale. The magazine ran for four years, spawning a film short, Love Me Gangster (1986); a paperback, Brute! Classified Pulp Nasties (1987); an animated TV series, Brute’s Adventures of Sizzler (1988); and various magazine and newspaper comic strips.
Bennett’s strident wit and unpredictable nature made him a natural but risky choice for live TV, and he was picked up by Channel 4 in particular. As capable of great charm as he was of astonishing bluntness, he tested his employers’ nerve. On Channel 4’s After Dark programme in 1989, during a discussion on gender, Malcolm successfully propositioned the Happy Hooker author Xaviera Hollander, and the pair walked off the live set to continue their discourse privately.
In the same year he was ushered off another live set when, after ridiculing the show he was appearing on, Channel 4’s Club X, he fired a handgun into the air.
His talent and personality were a draw for people in the TV and advertising world, and there was also interest from Hollywood. But his uncontrollable behaviour and use of hard drugs closed off most media avenues fairly quickly. He retreated into the relative obscurity of fanzine publishing in Bristol, albeit with the groundbreaking Ultra! magazine, alongside Robert Del Naja, a founding member of the Bristol musical collective Massive Attack. Not even the birth of his son, Thomas, in 1991, could help Bennett conquer his addiction to heroin, which was also instrumental in ending his relationship with Thomas’s mother, Claudia Ascott.
By 2000, however, Bennett was clean, living in London and re-establishing himself with poetry readings around the capital. Many of the famous names had disappeared from his life, but his work was still supported by fans such as the novelist Tony White and the writer Stephen Wells. His writing gained a second wind after the discovery of previously unpublished Brute! tales that led to the release of another book, I, Brute! in 2010.
Bennett became a frequent performer, developed an online presence and produced a small run of new material, including The Devil in Heaven and The Todgersons (both 2011). The Complete Brute!, an anthology of his series with Hughes, was due to be released this year by Titan Books, but has now been delayed.
Born in Wallasey, Wirral, one of three sons of Thomas, a shipbuilder, and his wife Jacqueline (nee Neill), Bennett had a difficult childhood. He was brought up by his father in modest surroundings after his mother left home when Malcolm was four. However, he treasured some things he inherited from his father – even though this included an unhelpful infatuation with firearms it also encompassed a lifelong fascination with Argentina, gleaned from stories that Thomas would read to him.
After Malcolm left Oldershaw comprehensive school in Wallasey, his early success came as a forceful performance poet in Liverpool, supporting acts such as Joy Division. His confrontational stage image, not vastly dissimilar to his off-stage persona, could result in enraged and occasionally violent audience responses. But he took comfort in reaction; it meant his words were being absorbed. While still living in Merseyside he produced his first book, Battle Poet (1981), illustrated by Hughes. Then with Hughes he relocated to Bristol, where Brute! was born.
Malcolm’s final years were spent in London and Paris with his partner, Ginny Goudy. She and his son survive him, as do his brothers, Paul and Steve.
Malcolm Alan Bennett, poet and author, born 21 September 1958; died 1 March 2015
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