Women In Comics Month: Interview With Marguerite Bennett

In honor of Women in Comics this March, PREVIEWSworld talks with creator Marguerite Bennett!

PREVIEWSworld: Tell us a little bit about yourself! What are you currently working on? 

Marguerite Bennett: I am so grateful to be working on DC’S BOMBSHELLS, RED SONJA, ANGELA: QUEEN OF HEL, and my delightful creator-owned series, INSEXTS, with more announcements soon to come!

PREVIEWSworld: How long have you been working with sequential art? What titles, companies, and creators have you worked with over your time in comics?

Marguerite Bennett: As of the day writing this (January 28, 2016), it will have been 3 years since Scott Snyder asked me to work with him—pulled me aside after class in grad school one night, to be honest. In March of 2013, I met with Mike Marts at DC Comics, and July 2013, my first comic was published—the BATMAN ANNUAL #2. I’m very proud to have worked with DC, Marvel, BOOM, IDW, and Aftershock on everything from BATMAN and A-FORCE to SLEEPY HOLLOW and RED SONJA.

PREVIEWSworld: Did you have a mentor or hero in the industry that inspired you to pursue a career in comics?

Marguerite Bennett: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Kieron Gillen, Sean Murphy, and Mike Marts have all given me countless hours of encouragement, guidance, advice, and inspiration. They keep me focused and keep me sane.

PREVIEWSworld: In your opinion, how has the comic book industry evolved in terms of gender?

Marguerite Bennett: Women were always reading comics. Now we’re just visible. There’s an awareness of a female readership—even if the audience accesses the stories through digital or trade paperback—and their importance in the community. You hate that comics are stereotyped as woman-hating or that comics readers or collectors are jerks? Make good, compelling art that brings people in. Don’t be the bullies that gave you crud for the things you love.

PREVIEWSworld: What stereotypes do you see surrounding women in comics? How could people of all genders go about breaking those stereotypes?

Marguerite Bennett: The first problem feeds into the second. There’s this tendency to have teams or casts that are six men and one woman. Or ten men and two women. And suddenly those women are required to represent the entirety of the female experience, which—trust me on this—no woman can do. The “isolated heroine experience” makes it so each woman has to be beautiful and strong but also not stronger than the male lead and also have to be romantically available but love guns but also not want him to go to his heroic thing because what if he gets hurt, and be funny and perfect but quirky and sexy but not too sexy because the villain’s girlfriend is sexy and we want to make sure only certain kinds of sexuality are acceptable for good girls. It’s absurd, and the answer, funny enough, is write more women. We are literally MORE than half of the world’s population. PUT US IN YOUR FICTION.     

PREVIEWSworld: How do you want to see women represented in comic books 10 years from now?

Marguerite Bennett: Like everyone else. Role models, villains, extras, EMTs, doctors, lawyers, housewives, sanitation workers, professors, henchmen, all of it. I want to see them everywhere, as everything. No more of this “each women must be everything.” Write them are people. Don’t fall back on someone else’s take. 

PREVIEWSworld: If you could give advice to any aspiring editors, executives, writers, or artists, what would you tell them?

Marguerite Bennett: Make the story you want to read, create the story only you could tell, and make art every single day. I am not kidding on that last part. No excuses. No you’re tired, you’re stressed, you have other engagements, you were invited out tonight, you’re uninspired—none of it. Artists don’t have more hours in the day than anyone else. You make time for this, if this is what you want. You make this a priority. It is going to be a bastard of a long haul. But if this is what you love, if this is what makes you happy, there is nothing better to get to be doing.

PREVIEWSworld: And lastly, are there any up-and-coming women creators who you would recommend readers check out?

Marguerite Bennett: I cannot recommend Jody Houser, Amy Chu, Tini Howard, Renae de Liz, and Rachel Deering highly enough. I am so excited for them to become industry staples.

See more Women In Comics Month interviews in our special section on PREVIEWSworld!