With the release of The Night Mother Vol. 1 from Oni Press this week, we are delighted to be joined by writer and filmmaker Jeremy Lambert and illustrator Alexa Sharpe. Jeremy has written many comics, including Doom Patrol, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellmouth, Dungeons & Dragons, Goosebumps, The Hollywood Special and Warhammer. As a film producer for Breakwater Studios, his productions have won an Academy Award and James Beard Award. Alexa has worked on Lumberjanes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rolled & Told, and Uncanny Magazine.
Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Alexa: I’m a book and comic illustrator from Los Angeles. I specialize in fantasy and horror. I’m hugely passionate about historical fashion too, and love including it in my art.
JFL: I’m Jeremy and I’m roughly 3 pumpkins and 22 horror movies in a trench coat. With glasses. And, luckily, hands. I write comics with them! Sometimes I make movies too.
Jeremy, can you tell us about the origins of The Night Mother?
JFL: I’d had this image of a gravedigger’s daughter who helped dig the graves that I couldn’t get out of my head, and then the emotional hook of her loneliness and her only friends being the ones she buries took root. And the Night Mother came about because of my obsession with the moon and with myth. Over time, some different ideas coalesced there. My own mom (nothing like the Night Mother, thankfully) works at Goddard Space and Flight Center for NASA so I was essentially born with a fascination for space.
Alexa, what did you think when you first heard the pitch for The Night Mother?
Alexa: As soon as I read it, it felt like an instant fit. Jeremy crafted this world that really draws you in and holds you there. It was like an immediate inspiration for me, I was already conjuring up art and imagery in my head on that first read-through. I knew I had to jump aboard.
What can you tell us about Madeline Tock?
JFL: Madeline is anxious, alone, and can hear the whispers of the dead. She’s never really had a friend, a living friend, and so she’s unsure of herself. Death’s been around her in the graveyard from a young age, so her understanding of life and living is a bit different. She doesn’t know what the future holds, and everything is turned upside down for her when the moon’s stuck in the night sky and the Night Mother descends to take the souls of the living. Maddy knows that what’s happening is wrong, knows it in her gut, and she’s going to have to learn to trust herself and her instincts in order to put her world back together. Not an easy thing for someone with low self-esteem and confidence.
Jeremy, what made Alexa the right artist for The Night Mother?
JFL: Alexa was the first person in mind for the book. I’d seen her work and was just such a massive fan that I wrote her name down immediately. Our instincts and sensibilities really line up in such an organic way that it’s been a really incredible process. I’m so lucky we get to tell this story together. She’s the beating heart of it, and I’m so grateful. I feel like I was thinking of the story in terms of her art the entire time I was writing up the pitch. There’s a few things central to her work that initially captured my attention and bring all this together, the juxtaposition of beauty and terror that she brings to everything, her delicate linework, her attention to costume and design, and being able to scare me with a single expression… it’s magic.
Alexa, you created all of the art for The Night Mother. What part of that process did you enjoy the most?
Alexa: Inking is always my favorite step in my art-making process, I look forward to it in every piece I do. Line art is a core part of my style, so I’ve really made use of lots of swooping, flowing lines throughout every panel in The Night Mother. I wanted the world to feel alive and in motion- and a little ghostly, too!
Jeremy, how did Oni Press get involved with The Night Mother?
JFL: Through our wonderful editor Sarah Gaydos! Sarah actually gave me my first opportunity on licensed comics with Goosebumps back when she was with IDW, and we’d always talked about original stories. Especially original horror stories. And when she was editor in chief over at Oni, I swung for the fences with the story I most wanted to tell and I sent her the pitch for The Night Mother.
How long have you been working on The Night Mother?
Alexa: Jeremy pitched The Night Mother to me around 2017-2018, so I’ve been on the team for 5, almost 6 years now.
JFL: Goodness, it has been about that long. What a time! I wrote the first ideas down for Night Mother in 2014, so about 4 years before pitching it to
Alexa. All told, it will have been a decade from the idea in a notebook/first pitch to publication, which is wild to think about.
Alexa, artistically, was it a challenge to bring Jeremy’s script to life?
Alexa: I find it incredibly easy to work with Jeremy’s writing, he’s an excellent storyteller. He has such rich imagery and careful layout descriptions, while still giving me plenty of room to interpret and rearrange things visually. It’s a skillful balance that I always appreciate about his scripts!
Jeremy, who is the Night Mother?
JFL: Normally? A benevolent being who harvests the souls of the dead to turn them into beautiful moonlight to shine on for their loved ones and the living. But this story isn’t normal, and this Night Mother isn’t benevolent. When this Night Mother took up the mantle, she grew more and more interested in how she could use these souls to her advantage. And now she needs more… taking the souls of the living in addition to the dead…
Alexa, could you tell us visually how the Night Mother came about?
Alexa: Going in, I knew I wanted to make the Night Mother both elegant and terrifying to look at. I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from Victorian and Edwardian fashion for everyone’s costuming in the book, but I remember initially thinking of designing the Night Mother herself like a ‘Gibson girl gone very wrong’. Her silhouette is all about volume- billowy and overpowering, like she embodies the cosmos.
How would you describe The Night Mother?
JFL: A myth of moon and monster about a little girl who learns to trust her gut.
With The Night Mother releasing on October 8th, how do you feel?
Alexa: Very excited and proud! This has been in the works for a long time, and is the first original graphic novel I’ve ever worked on. I’m really looking forward to finally getting to see our hard work as a real live book.
JFL: Same as Alexa, so incredibly excited and proud. I can’t wait for people to see Alexa’s beautiful art. Writing for a younger audience seems like my default state, and no story has been as present in my life as this one. I can’t wait for readers to go on this journey with Maddy and the Night Mother.
Any message for the ComicBuzz readers?
JFL: Thank you so much for taking a look, and we hope you enjoy The Night Mother! Beware the Sleepers.
We would like to say a big thank you to Jeremy and Alexa for chatting with us. We would like to wish them the best of luck with The Night Mother Vol. 1.
