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Image’s solicit describes Mommy Blog #1 as an outrageous black comedy, which is true, but when I came away from it, I would have filed it in as horror comedy. Satirical horror comedy. And also, a delight – I’ve known and followed the work of Marguerite Bennett’s since we first crossed paths in a Karaoke dungeon in New York, but I’ve only had a little experience with Eleanor Carlini in Vicarious. Both are having a lot of fun here, and the whole thing is gleefully grotesque, hitting it as hard as it can before running off cackling. It’s a one-off standalone double-sized issue, and I was glad to get a chance to talk to Marguerite about it, even though one of her answers had me swearing at her. You’ll be able to spot it.
When reading Mommy Blog, I'm reminded of something. Whenever we hang out, you always seem to gleefully reveal a horror short story, your best evil smile on your face. The double-sized issue stand-alone comic story seems a great format for you - a single aesthetic chunk, long enough that you get a little space to explore that 20 pages crushes, short enough that it's nothing but that idea. Did you like it? What do you like about it?
You are so kind and I adore you and miss you profoundly. :D
I’ve really delighted in this format–it’s exactly as you say. Horror relies on focus and tension – you’re never going to get the same experience with the horror movie if you’re watching it on cable or a channel with ads, where the tension is routinely broken. In the same way, having the break of a cliffhanger between issues can burst the tension, which must then be reestablished before we may continue. In a fat 40-pager, I can deliver you a full horror movie experience, devoid of distractions. It’s just me and you, getting up to our elbows in gore. :)
I read Mommy Blog's horrorshow world of mom-influencers and immediately wanted to pass it to Chrissy to read, as much feels horrifically close to home. We're parents. You're not. What made you want to explore the world? Influencers is one thing - mom-as-influencer something else. What attracted you to the terrain and where you went with it?
Sadly, any girlchild raised in the South is raised to be a wife and mother before she’s raised to be a person. I was being trained for one of these six limited roles (as delineated by our villain) from just past infancy. The rules are hammered into you like burning hot nails – you may have the illusion of choice in what subset of wife and mother you might be, but YOU WILL SERVE.
Watching what was an intense and tribal element of my upbringing become a social media sensation was a bit disorienting. Some blogs were designed to offer understanding for new mothers; others established themselves as authorities, policing the struggles of women and invoking a hierarchy based on perceived success. All the old power dynamics of my childhood were suddenly pop culture entertainment.
I’ve run 30 years and 3,000 miles from an incident at a community pool as a little girl, but here it still is, all around me.
The killer caught up to me. That’s horror.
Eleonora Carlini has so much fun here - leaning into the grotesques of the world, casually doing the fashion, loving the brutality. How did you work together? How did you get together?
Eleonora is GRAND, simply GRAND! I’ve been such a fan of hers for ages – I could pick her doodles out of a line of a hundred imitators.
Eleonora seized immediately upon the over-the-top, zany, almost LOONEY TUNES violence of the premise–black comedy and satire as much as horror. Comedy and tragedy are separated only by consequence – a man in a top hat slips on a banana peel, LMAO, look at his dignity vanish! He had it coming, rich bastard, thinking he was better than us. But a man in a top hat slips on a banana peel, he hits his head on the pavement, he’s bleeding, God there’s so much blood, he’s not moving–they’re calling an ambulance, the lights all red and blue, they’re telling his wife, he has two children–that’s tragedy.
Eleonora knew implicitly where to twist the knife and where to leave the laugh. She’s brilliant.
I was just doing some horrible math. I'm totally old. It's the 20-year anniversary of Phonogram next year. But it's been 12 years for you since your first work on Lobo, a decade since we worked together on Angela. How have you changed as a comic writer - what have you learned? What are you still working on? You're someone who always had a powerful interest in how text and captions work on the page, and that's strongly at play in Mommy Blog.
I’m now as old as you were back when we first met, sugar. ;)
I’ve learned a great deal since I was a flouncy little baby writer fresh out of school. I’ve learned that very little is more important than sticking to your principles. I was an idealist when I first began, and I expected to be soundly disabused of that notion twelve years in, but I am more confirmed in this belief than ever. I have never regretted leaving a job if it went against what I believe in my gut is right and true and important. I’ll say my piece and keep my resolve, so be it.
To craft, I’ve learned the power of the one-shot, much as the one good sucker punch. When I was new at this, I wanted to write my epics, my forty-issue magnum opus, but now, I thrill at just having a good fucking time. Times are hard; money is tight; let’s have one blinding red bang for our buck.
I’m not less ambitious, but I am more interested in my own happiness than my own work.
Okay - I said the double sized one and done is a great format for you? Hell, it's a great format for me, as a reader. I'm aware that some of my big influences are the double-sized single issue, most notably Morrison/Bond's Kill Your Boyfriend. Do you think there's more of this in the future in the industry, from you or other people? And if not, what? I'm aware this is a fancyied-up version of the "So, what's next for you? Do you have a favourite superhero book you'd like to write, ideally, my favourite?", but go with me - I feel like I haven't talked for ages. Catch me up. Catch up the readers too. Where ARE you, Marguerite Bennett of Earth?
You are the sweetest. <3 <3
I’d be delighted to do more large format one-shots if publishers want them from me. They’re more than welcome to reach out.
In comics, WITCHBLADE is my monthly darling, MOMMY BLOG is the newest debut, I’ve got some wicked little ten-pagers in HELLO DARKNESS and CATACOMB OF TORMENT. I’ve got several horror series bubbling on the stove, one of which is with my brother-in-arms, James Tynion IV.
Beyond that, I’ve been doing a great deal of work in development in other media – it’s genuinely confounding that one can make a viable career out of writing a dozen horror screenplays that never see the light of day, but that’s Hollywood. Animation has also been very good to me.
I’ve been very busy, and very blessed to be very busy, but comics will always be my first love.
If anyone wants to seduce me back into the fray, I’ve got an open slot on my Saturday night dance card. ;)
Mommy Blog #1 is out on May 28, 2025 and is available to pre-order until May 5th.