The Art of Jaime Hernandez: The Secrets of Life and Death
By Todd Hignite, Introduction by Alison Bechdel
Do you remember the first time you encountered the work of Jaime Hernandez?
While I’d been fascinated by ads for Love and Rockets during the title’s first year or two, I was still too young to break away from super heroes. The first issue I bought was no. 15, and the warm spirit evoked by Jaime’s iconic cover has really come to symbolize what I’ve always loved about his art—and the best comics in general. It’s been burned onto my brain since I first saw it.
Love and Rockets first appeared in 1981. What keeps the stories and characters fresh after so many years?
More so than in any other comic, Jaime’s characters resonate and grow in the mind of the reader. I can’t overstate the importance of Love and Rockets in completely changing my view of comics’ possibilities. The rich world he’s created, which swirls forward and back in time as the characters age, affects me profoundly and on so many levels. And I’ve got a lot of company—I can safely say that no other cartoonist has created a body of work that garners such personal, visceral connections from readers.
How do you think Jaime, a male artist, is able to so successfully capture the point of view of women in his work?
I explore this from different perspectives quite a bit in the book—it has to do with a seemingly simple principle that just rarely exists elsewhere in comics: The characters are real to Jaime and their lives lead the stories. He never tries to massage them into situations; rather, they live and breathe, and as such create a holistic world. They’re just the polar opposite of virtually all male projections of females in comics. Maggie and Hopey truly restore my faith in humanity with every new issue.
Jaime Hernandez opened up his archives to you—what was that like?
Jaime’s generosity was just incredible—so much of the material has never even been seen by anyone outside of his close circle of friends, much less published. His creative process is illuminated through sketches, unused and unfinished original art, and story drafts and doodles, in addition to his published originals, sketchbooks, and illustration work. Not to mention all the incredible art from the first twenty years of his life leading up to Love and Rockets. I’m unbelievably grateful for his close participation at all stages of this project.
If you had to describe Jaime’s work to someone who had never seen it, what would you say?
Real life in all its messy glory framed by some of the most accomplished and breath-taking cartooning ever seen in comics. And I do mean ever. In short, Jaime’s work is the best, most poignantly rewarding comic book stories you could hope to find.
About the Author:
Todd Hignite is the founder and editor of the critically lauded publication Comic Art (Buenaventura Press), which has been nominated for Eisner Awards every year of its existence, and won a Harvey Award in 2004. He is the author of In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists (Yale University Press, 2006), and co-editor and co-author of Strips, Toons, & Bluesies; Essays in Comics and Culture (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006). Hignite is one of the most visible chroniclers of contemporary English-language comics, having curated numerous exhibitions on the art form, including Speak: Nine Cartoonists (2006), the subject of a substantial feature in The New York Times, and R. Crumb’s Underground, currently touring the country. He lives near Dallas, Texas, with his wife and daughter.
Jaime Hernandez was born in Oxnard, California, sixty miles northwest of Los Angeles. In 1981, he and his brother Gilbert, along with another brother, Mario, self published a single comic book called Love and Rockets. Shortly after that, they were picked up by Fantagraphics Books and produced fifty issues before they decided to take a break after fifteen years and pursue solo projects. For the next few years Jaime’s projects included Whoa, Nellie!, Penny Century, and Maggie and Hopey’s Color Fun. In 2000, Jaime and Gilbert decided to revive Love and Rockets,and it continues today. Jaime has also worked for The New Yorker, Spin, and Hustler, and has done album covers for Michelle Shocked, 7 Year Bitch, Indigo Girls, and Los Lobos. In 2006 he produced a twenty-part strip in the New York Times Magazine titled “La Maggie La Loca.” Love and Rockets has won numerous awards, including multiple Harveys and Eisners. Jaime loves making comics and dreams of doing nothing else for the rest of his life. He lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife, Meg, daughter, Carson, and dog, Abigail.