| Jaime Hernandez is the co-creator (with his brothers, Gilbert and Mario) of the ongoing alternative comic Love and Rockets. He is most famous for the Locas storylines, which feature on-off lovers and friends Maggie Chascarillo and Hopey Glass. More information on his books can be found at the Fantagraphics website. Buy them.
 Maggie; ‘The Return of Ray D.’, Love and Rockets, vol. 1 (© Jaime Hernandez). FRIVOLOUS NOW: Harvey Pekar famously said that ‘with words and pictures you can do anything’; is there anything special about comics as a medium that makes them particularly suited to tell stories? JAIME HERNANDEZ: To put it simply, my words help my pictures and my pictures help my words so in my opinion it is the best and most useful form of artistic expression there is. It is also very inexpensive to do and cuts down on boredom. FN: The recent Love & Rockets New Stories volume 3 featured the return of a more realistic Maggie story, in contrast to the Ti Girls episodes that went with a more Silver Age superhero style, and Ghost of Hoppers which had a gothic feel; how do you find moving between the naturalistic and the fantastic while using the same characters? Are they difficult to balance?
 Young Perla, ‘Browntown’, Love and Rockets New Stories (© Jaime Hernandez). JH: No, it’s very easy actually. For me, it’s fun to play with what is real and what is surreal and to try and figure out where to draw the line between the two. I just hope the reader is willing to play along and sometimes draw some of their own conclusions. FN: Do you or your brother feel any affinity with contemporaries such as Alan Moore, Frank Miller, or Howard Chaykin, who are more associated with superheroes? JH: I respect them as artists but I don’t read their work. FN: Ever been asked to work for DC or Marvel? Would you do it? JH: I’ve done covers in the past for DC and I just did a cover and story for Marvel’s STRANGE TALES 2 series. It’s fun to do that stuff once in awhile but L&R is where I get serious. FN: The early stories had a strong science fiction element that disappeared after a while, to be replaced by subcultural concerns like punk, wrestling and lowrider – what was the thinking behind this? JH: It pretty much evolved. The real life stuff just became more interesting and important to me after awhile and the sci-fi stuff started to feel silly next to the reality. Didn’t mean I hated drawing dinosaurs any more, I just had a different mission. FN: Do you see a link between your direct, crisp visual style and a no bullshit punk aesthetic? JH: Absolutely. You can’t get any less bullshit than a direct art style. If it feels too polished for some, that is only because I was given the natural talent to do it and I will use that to my advantage if it will get my ideas across better than creating a “style”. In other words, my art comes out that way because that’s the way I draw. FN: How important was the Oxnard scene to your work? JH: It gave me a hell of a lot of good material to work with so I guess it was very important. FN: Do you still work on any record covers? JH: Occasionally. The only punk stuff I’ve done in recent years is ad work for Frontier Records, Lisa Fancher being a friend of mine. FN: Issues of identity seem to play an important part throughout the Locas storylines – race, class, gender, sexuality etc. – was this deliberate, or an inevitable side-effect, given that you are a Mexican-American writing about a particular group of people? JH: Both, I guess. It’s something I’m not afraid to put out there, that we are all different but that’s what makes our world so cool and colorful. Difference is also fun to draw. FN: L&R has been published in different formats – magazine style, comic book, coffee table style, and now as annual – how much of this is for artistic reasons and how much financial? JH: Mostly financial these days but I’m not worried. I will always be able to fit the art into it, no matter the format. FN: Does this have an impact on how the stories are told? JH: Yes, at the start the latest format can have an advantage as well as a disadvantage but all it takes is adjusting to how much space the format allows the work to breathe naturally. Trouble is, sometimes the adjustment takes longer than usual. FN: You’re storytelling is very direct and economical, and you usually stick to six, eight or nine panel grids – why is this? Does this influence the pacing, setting etc. of the stories? JH: Not really. The frames are basically there to be ignored. It’s the stuff going on inside the frame that dictates the pace, setting, etc… FN: The Locas stories carry with them so much continuity now, is it hard to keep track of? JH: Sometimes. Maybe that’s why I’ve been dealing with less characters in my stories lately, so I don’t drive myself and everyone else around me completely bats. FN: I like the fact that Maggie and Ray are comics fans and are often seen reading comics – any particular reason for this?
 Maggie and Ray D. ‘Near mint’, Love and Rockets, vol. 2 (© Jaime Hernandez). JH: Because I like comics and have always liked comics without shame and that gives me the opportunity to share some of my comic book collecting experiences. Originally I held off on it because I didn’t want their lives too closely like mine but after awhile I said screw that; out of all my characters, can’t I allow to have two comic fans?!
FN: Seth wrote about the links between drawing/inking and memory, about how when he’s working he often finds his mind wandering to the past and these reveries find their way into his comics. Do you find this when drawing flashbacks, which you seem to use a lot? JH: Absolutely. My past stays with me always as do my characters’ pasts. It’s something I thought was normal for everybody but I have learned that is not so. FN: Did you always intend to age Maggie, Hopey and the rest in ‘real’ time? JH: Pretty early on. Of course it didn’t become a reality until the comic was around for a while and I had to start thinking about where they were timewise. FN: I get the feeling this is part of the reason why your readers have such a heavy emotional investment in your work (Alison Bechdel referred to Locas as ‘drawn with a pulse’)… JH: A character will always seem more real if you give them a past and future to tie in with the present. FN: How much more can Maggie go through?! …or is it the point that happiness and desire remain unfulfilled in much the same way as the stories remain open-ended…? JH: Man, this is getting intense! I guess I like to punish the characters I adore most because I get more life and emotion out of them? I dunno, it sounded like a good thing to say… FN: You and your brother are, belatedly, getting more academic attention – what do you make of this? FN: How much further can you go ageing them?! JH: Until they get old and die, I guess. FN: Can you see Maggie and Hopey ever getting back together as a couple..? Or Maggie and Ray? JH: You wouldn’t want me to spoil it, would you?  Maggie Chascarillio and Hopey Glass, ‘Locas’, Love and Rockets, vol. 1 (© Jaime Hernandez).
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The Guy from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. – An einterview with Jaime Hernandez
Posted in: Misc.
The Frivolous Now 
Posted on December 5, 2010 by Tony
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