Jaime (sometimes spelled Xaime) Hernandez (born 1959) is the co-creator of the
alternative
Alternative or alternate may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki''
* ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film
* ''The Alternative ...
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
''
Love and Rockets'' with his brothers
Gilbert and
Mario
is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his cre ...
.
Early life
Jaime Hernandez grew up in
Oxnard, California
Oxnard () is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. On California's South Coast, it is the most populous city in Ventura County and the 22nd-most-populous city in California. Incorporated in 1903, Oxnard lies approximately west ...
.
[Aldama, p. 119.] He is the youngest of his family, with four older brothers and one sister.
[
] His family embraced comics: their mother read them frequently and old issues were kept in large quantities in the house, to be read and re-read by all over the years.
[ "We grew up with comics," Hernandez said. "I wanted to draw comics my whole life."
They read all types of comics and enjoyed those that gave a fairly realistic depiction of family life as well as the standard superhero adventures. Hernandez was particularly influenced by ]Hank Ketcham
Henry King Ketcham (March 14, 1920 – June 1, 2001) was an American cartoonist who created the '' Dennis the Menace'' comic strip, writing and drawing it from 1951 to 1994, when he retired from drawing the daily cartoon and took up painting ...
's ''Dennis the Menace'' and Dan DeCarlo
Daniel S. DeCarlo (December 12, 1919 – December 18, 2001) was an American cartoonist best known for having developed the look of Archie Comics in the late 1950s and early 1960s, modernizing the characters to their contemporary appearance and es ...
's ''Archie''' comics. The children in his otherwise rather realistic stories are often drawn to resemble Ketcham's, and Jaime's characters often strike very "DeCarlo-esque" poses. The work of Alex Toth
Alexander Toth (June 25, 1928 – May 27, 2006) was an American cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s. Toth's work began in the American comic book industry, but he is also known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout ...
, Charles Schulz
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz (; November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) was an American cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip ''Peanuts'', featuring what are probably his two best-known characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He is wi ...
, Jesse Marsh and Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He gre ...
were also hugely influential.[
Hernandez has a lifelong fascination with ]pro wrestling
Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...
, especially women's wrestling, and it has been a regular part of his work. Hernandez has also been a lifelong punk rock fan. In addition to playing in bands himself it has been a constant element of his work. His heroine Maggie and her friends are almost all punk fans; he also has done a series of stories about the career of another main character (Hopey) as a bass player for a luckless punk band.
Career
Jaime's main contribution to ''Love and Rockets'' is the ongoing serial narrative ''Locas'' which follows the tangled lives of a group of primarily Latina
Latina or Latinas most often refers to:
* Latinas, a demographic group in the United States
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America.
*Latin Americans
Latina and Latinas may also refer ...
characters, from their teenage years in the early days of the California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
punk
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
scene to the present day. The two central characters of Jaime's cast are Margarita Luisa "Maggie" Chascarrillo and Esperanza Leticia "Hopey" Glass, whose on-again, off-again, open romance is a focus for many ''Locas'' storylines. Early on, the stories switched back and forth between Maggie's sci-fi adventures journeying around the world and working as a "prosolar" mechanic repairing rocketships, and much more realistic stories of Maggie and her friends in a grungy, mostly Latin California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
neighborhood known as "Hoppers". Eventually Hernandez dropped almost all of the sci-fi elements, although he does still occasionally include references to the earlier stories and he still does very occasional short stories about superheroines, robots and other sci-fi genre elements.
The Hernandez brothers announced they were ending ''Love and Rockets'' with issue 50, and that they would be doing solo books from then on. For the next few years, the brothers released many solo books, with Jaime doing several books featuring his Locas characters (including ''Whoa Nellie'', ''Penny Century'', and ''Maggie and Hopey Color Fun'') and Maggie generally occupying a supporting role. Eventually they resumed doing ''Love and Rockets'' and Maggie again took center stage, but instead of the large, magazine-style format of the original issues, the book was now released in a more traditional comic book format.
The entire ''Locas'' storyline to date was collected into one 700 page graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
in 2004.
Hernandez has been praised for the physical beauty of his female characters as well as their complex personalities, and for years he struggled to create comparably nuanced male characters. Hernandez has often said that Maggie and Ray Dominguez both represent different aspects of his own personality.
In an interview with The Comics Journal
''The Comics Journal'', often abbreviated ''TCJ'', is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing r ...
, Hernandez admitted he'd had difficulty aging his characters, because while he'd known girls like Maggie and Hopey when he was young, he'd never known them long enough to find out what they did in adulthood.
Other work
In addition to his ''Locas'' stories, Hernandez has also done occasional work for DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
and ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', and he has done many album covers for such artists as Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked (born Karen Michelle Johnston; February 24, 1962) is an American singer-songwriter. Her music has entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and received an award f ...
. Earlier in his career Hernandez also did album covers for some "Nardcore
Since the mid-1970s, California has had thriving regional punk rock movements. It primarily consists of bands from the Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura County, San Diego, San Fernando Valley, San Francisco, Fresno, Bakersfield, Alameda Cou ...
" punk bands, such as Ill Repute and Dr. Know, the latter of whom featured his younger brother Ismael on bass. Hernandez contributed his artwork for the Indigo Girls' 2004 album '' All That We Let In''. In September 2006, Hernandez also created the artwork for the critically acclaimed Los Lobos album ''The Town and the City
''The Town and the City'' is a novel by Jack Kerouac, published by Harcourt Brace in 1950. This was the first major work published by Kerouac, who later became famous for his second novel '' On the Road'' (1957). Like all of Jack Kerouac's major ...
''. In 1984-85 Gilbert, Mario and Jaime collaborated on '' Mister X'', a sci-fi comic book series from Vortex Press, with Jaime handling the art and Gilbert and Mario plotting. The book's noirish look has been cited as an influence by the creators of '' Batman: The Animated Series'' among other retro-futuristic works. The Hernandez brothers themselves hold little affection for it, however, with Gilbert once describing it being "like a bad zit... it just sort of happened." The Hernandez brothers left the book when Vortex failed to pay them in full. Responding to the non-payment accusations, publisher Bill Marks said "I don't dispute that one bit. And they'll be paid every nickel of it, or every quarter of it." The Hernandez brothers were indeed ultimately paid for their work on ''Mister X'' in 1988.
In 2006, ''Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
'' ranked Hernandez' work ''Ghost of Hoppers'' second on its critics' poll of the best comic books of 2006.
Awards
* 1986 Kirby Award
The Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards were a set of awards for achievement in comic books, presented from 1985-1987. Voted on by comic-book professionals, the Kirby awards were the first such awards since the Shazam Awards ceased in 1975. Sponsored ...
– Best Artist, Best Black-and-White Comic (''Love and Rockets'')Inkpot Award
The Inkpot Award is an honor bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International. It is given to professionals in the fields of comic books, comic strips, animation, science fiction, and related areas of popular culture, at CCI's annual conv ...
Harvey Award
The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that we ...
– Best Continuing or Limited Series (''Love and Rockets'')Ignatz Award
The Ignatz Awards recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year at the Small Press Expo since 1997, only skipping ...
- Outstanding Artist (''Love and Rockets New Stories'')Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ...
- Best Graphic Novel/Comics
References
Sources
*
Further reading
*
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External links
Jaime Hernandez at FantagraphicsReview of Love & Rockets Jaime Hernandez interview with Suicide GirlLong list of Love and Rockets links
- About 187 characters appear at least once in Jaime's work; 65 of these appear more than once.
Jaime Hernandez interview Scholarly article that sets Jaime Hernandez's work in historical/theoretical context
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hernandez, Jaime
1959 births
Alternative cartoonists
American comics artists
American comics writers
American graphic novelists
American writers of Mexican descent
Harvey Award winners for Best Artist or Penciller
Harvey Award winners for Best Cartoonist
Ignatz Award winners for Outstanding Artist
Living people
People from Oxnard, California