Locas Heroes

April 2, 2025 9:24 PM

Jaime Hernandez: A Master Cartoonist Ages Alongside His Heroine. A colorful tribute to Love and Rockets, a long-runnng ground-breaking comic that began in 1982. ungated

A previous NYT piece on L&R's 40th anniversary.

We Never Learned that We Shouldn't Be Doing This. An interview with the Bros.

Artbound: Love and Rockets. A 56 minute PBS video.

posted by storybored (18 comments total)

"Oh yeah, a signed piece of paper from the copy machine is gonna seal their..."

A whole problem, solution and conclusion in a frame.
posted by mathjus at 9:39 PM on April 2 [3 favorites]

Thanks for posting these! I like how Beto spends a lot of the interview building up Jaime. I'm happy that the two of them have been able to do what they want for more than 40 years.
posted by zompist at 10:38 PM on April 2 [3 favorites]

I'm pretty sure I saw issue #1 at Bulldog news on 'the Ave' in Seattle in 1982.

It was electrifying and made it very clear that a major new talent had arrived — fairly burst upon the scene, in fact.
posted by jamjam at 11:03 PM on April 2 [5 favorites]

Thanks for linking this - I love Jamie's work. That hyperactive formatting the NYT has chosen for it is bloody irritating, though. STAY STILL!
posted by Paul Slade at 1:10 AM on April 3 [2 favorites]

It's a shock (a shock of recognition to be sure, but still) to see Maggie and Hopey so old, so recognizably themselves and yet so changed.

Very few comic or cartoon characters are given the respect of aging. I haven't really been part of the comics scene for decades but the teenage me inside got hit in the feels.
posted by rikschell at 5:04 AM on April 3 [6 favorites]

1982... I'm with you, rikschell, remembering first reading Love and Rockets in 1985.
posted by doctornemo at 5:08 AM on April 3 [4 favorites]

After someone pointed out the Dan DeCarlo influence to me, I could never stop seeing it.
posted by Lemkin at 5:22 AM on April 3 [1 favorite]

My god how I once tried to draw like Jaime Hernandez. I failed spectacularly (of course) but what a wonderful time I had pouring over his art and stories. Life changing - and life-affirming - stuff. Thanks so much for posting!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 5:45 AM on April 3 [4 favorites]

These comics hold a special place in my heart. Thank you for posting this.
posted by rednikki at 7:19 AM on April 3 [1 favorite]

I started reading Love and Rockets with issue #2, and to say that it was important to my appreciation of comics, especially non-superhero comics, is massively understating the situation; it was central to my looking beyond whatever the Big Two were churning out at the moment. L&R wasn't the first non-superhero comic that I ever picked up--I'd glanced at some underground comix, mostly Crumb, and also some of the Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal stuff, but those were mostly curiosities and didn't grab me the way that L&R did from the very beginning. And it was my gateway drug to not just other artists published by Fantagraphics (Clowes, Bagge, etc.) but also other stuff from other companies, even taking me back to some of the undergrounds that were about more than just Crumb perving on thicc women.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:00 AM on April 3 [2 favorites]

Fantastic post. I've been following L&R since "The Death Of Speedy". I don't always get the new stuff, but I've learned over time that the best bits will sneak up on you. ¡Viva Los Bros!
posted by El Brendano at 8:41 AM on April 3

The only thing more striking than the confidence of Jaime's storytelling is the confidence of his line.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:47 AM on April 3 [4 favorites]

the confidence of his line.

ITS SO CONSISTENT

The fact that it's looked exactly the way its meant to look, in order to tell exactly the kind of story its meant to tell, for 40 dang years is such an outstanding artistic success. It's one of those styles that reads as simple, but its economy and precision is super subtle in its expressiveness, and surprisingly difficult to imitate.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:03 PM on April 3 [4 favorites]

After someone pointed out the Dan DeCarlo influence to me, I could never stop seeing it.

Reg Smythe may have been one of his influences too.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:18 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]

Holy crap, Paul Slade--I can't say that I was a fan of Andy Capp, exactly, but I read it quite a bit growing up (I read all the newspaper comics, even the ones that I didn't like), and that's a great catch!
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:56 AM on April 4

One thing that drives me nuts about fantagraphics is that after the initial comic collections from the 90s, they never really did proper reprinting of L&R. They would do story collections, but often would leave out the short stories with other characters. Finally, they did the first 50 issues, but in a rather expensive box set, though not quite as egregious as what they did to eightball. I managed to get a very good sale price on it a few months back, but haven't really had the chance to dive back in. I liked the stories when I was much younger about the crazy punk rock chicks that also has dinosaurs in it, but revisiting it, I'm really struck at how consistently good Jaime's artwork was.

Many years ago, san francisco had a comics museum dedicated to the Hernandez brothers, including the early art by Mario, who started it with Gilbert and Jaime, but he wanted to do a superhero comic. Amazing what it turned into, along with Gilberts magical realism.

Glad they're still around, and its hard to say something is underappreciated when a successful band takes their name from your art and has their own career, but I really wish more people knew what these guys did.
posted by lkc at 11:32 AM on April 4

I always wonder if Jamie's ever been approached about turning the Maggie and Hopey stories into a prestige TV show and - if so - what his attitude to an offer like that might be. The time's probably passed now, but there was a period when all the streamers were in a feeding frenzy for source material, and 24 episodes of his barrio stories done right for TV - with the prospect of more seasons to come - could work rather well, I think.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:21 AM on April 5

There was apparently some talk of doing a Locas movie back in the '90s. Rumor has it that the project fell through because the studio balked at both main characters being Latina.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:17 PM on April 5