Alan Moore: Love & Rockets by Jaime Hernandez

Love & Rockets #24 (1987)

Original cover art by Jaime Hernandez

ALAN MOORE:

(from the introduction to Love & Rockets: Mechanics #1 by Jaime Hernandez, 1985)

The worst thing about being a mature and discerning comic enthusiast who's fiercely committed to the elevation of aesthetic standards within the medium is that you have to hide all your copies of Herbie and Atomic Mouse when your friends call round. Much as you might be dedicated to sweeping radical change in the field of graphic narrative, there still remains a sloppy and nostalgic longing for the way Lee Elais drew the Black Cat or the precise feel and smell of a Giant-Sized Li'l Archie Special, and the difficulty of reconciling a thirst for the magnificent with an appetite for the inane is something that makes hypocrites out of the best of us. We all want progress, but we don't want to watch while the bulldozers of cultural advancement roll forwards over the crushed remains of Betty, Veronica and the Fighting American.

That's why Mechanics, along with the rest of the work that the Brothers Hernandez have been perpetrating within the pages of Love & Rockets, comes as such a bloody relief. There's enough style, content, and persistent narrative ingenuity to satisfy the most wild-eyed and slavering progressive, but somehow it's been accomplished without sacrificing and of the sheer silly-arsed vitality that gives the medium so much of its appeal. In Mechanics, Jaime Hernandez seems to have somehow synthesised a complete and satisfying comic-book world out of all the things that, for whatever reason, he loves about comics.

There's a sense that the world inhabited by Maggie and her friends exists in the backstreets of the regular funny book universe. You know that if you took the crosstown bus from Barrio Hoppers 13 you'd find Riverdale High School, sheltering out in the more sedate residential districts uptown. You know that somewhere far away there's a Metropolis where the super-people are punching each other through buildings, even though the sound of conflict seldom filters down to street level. All the familiar icons dotting the comics landscape are filtered through a unique and lucid personal vision, providing a rich, evocative backdrop for the meticulously observed and vividly human characters to perform against, and the mix is as perfect as it is consistent.

Relentlessly charming despite its hard cutting edge, Mechanics is a comic strip for the future with a keen grasp of what was valuable about the strips of the past. If there's a more exhilarating or compelling book on the market at the moment, I haven't heard about it.

FURTHER READING:
Fantagraphics: How to Read Love & Rockets

Wigwam Bam by Jaime Hernandez (No. 13)

Wigwam Bam (1990-1993)

by Jaime Hernandez

REVIEW BY TOM SPURGEON:

(from The 100 Best Comics of the Century! in The Comics Journal #210, 1999)

Wigwam Bam is Jaime Hernandez's best-realised long work, an amazingly rich meditation on the power memory has over one's everyday life. In itself an affecting story, Wigwam Bam gains even more significance in the context of the artist's wider Love & Rockets run. More-over, it contains one of the best meta-fictional conceits in comics history. Characters within Wigwam Bam struggle to come to terms with an idealised view of the relationship between Hernandez's characters Hopey and Maggie - just as readers who experienced those early stories also must deal with their nostalgia for that relationship.

Underestimated as a writer, Hernandez makes use of a number of fascinating and unconventional narrative techniques in Wigwam Bam. The story begins with an ending: Maggie leaves Hopey, and does not physically appear again in the story. This development echoes Hopey's abandonment of Maggie during the stories collected in The Death of Speedy - the beginning of a larger story cycle for which Wigwam Bam is the climax - and allows Hernandez to investigate the often inscrutable Hopey without her most humanising relationship.

As was the case with Hopey in those earlier stories, Maggie's presence in Wigwam Bam is actually larger for her absence. In fact, the most emotionally satisfying conclusion is Maggie's, as Hernandez allows a discovered diary to speak to the turmoil the character experienced as the story began, giving her decision to leave a believable, emotionally laden context.

The supple, gorgeous art on display in Wigwam Bam has never been more important to the ultimate success off one of the cartoonist's stories. The world into which Hopey finds herself drifting is presented in terms attractive enough that even as odder aspects seem appealing, making the violent turn of events near story's end that much more disturbing. Hernandez's skill with character design is crucial - new characters (and there are many) make their impressions immediately, while older characters are distinct while retaining elements of the previous incarnations. Hernandez's skill in delineating characters allows him to tell stories in an extremely graceful shorthand - we derive from how the characters relate to one another, or simply by how they look and carry themselves, hundreds of text pages worth of meaning. 

The messages implicit in Wigwam Bam are neither reassuring nor trendily nihilistic. Instead, each character's story delivers a note of poignancy mixed with guarded, subtle optimism. While Maggie's diary shows how her memories of a childhood friend's death have led her to fear abandonment, reading that diary helps the character Izzy come to terms with her own feelings about the Maggie and Hopey relationship. The scenes where Hopey realises how quickly any support she's enjoyed has fallen away, leaving her exposed and alone, are rightfully devastating. But they also serve as a sign that the worst has passed, and that the events may become a lesson for a character who resists every kind of growth. All of the characters in Wigwam Bam grapple, successfully or not, with similar epiphanies of wisdom and pain. Wigwam Bam is one of the best stories in any medium about memory, adulthood and loss.

FURTHER READING:

Jaime Hernandez at Fantagraphics Books

The Death of Speedy Ortiz by Jaime Hernandez (No. 22)

The Death of Speedy Ortiz (1987)

by Jaime Hernandez

REVIEW BY ROBERT BOYD:

(from The 100 Best Comics of the Century! in The Comics Journal #210, 1999)

The Death of Speedy Ortiz is a great self-contained story. It's also the beginning of a long story cycle that ends with Chester Square. And ultimately, it marked a huge qualitative leap for Jaime Hernandez. Prior to this story, Jaime was perceived as the more frivolous of the Hernandez brothers. Gilbert Hernandez did the moving and meaningful stories, Jaime Hernandez did the light, entertaining, beautifully drawn stories. The Death of Speedy Ortiz changed that equation and forced a reevaluation of the artistic achievement of Jaime Hernandez.

The Death of Speedy Ortiz is in a sense the second chapter of a long narrative which begins with The Return of Ray D. This story introduces the soon-to-be major character Ray, as well as elevating a walk-on character, Danita, to major character status. This is also the point when Hopey, Maggie's girlfriend, leaves on an extended tour with her band - perhaps the critical event in the entire story cycle. These two events set up The Death of Speedy. Speedy is the younger brother of Izzy Ortiz. He begins an affair with Maggie's younger sister, Esther. Esther, however, is also romantically entangled with Rojo, leader of the Dairytown gang. Dairytown and Hoppers (where Speedy, Maggie and the rest live) are two barrios that have a long-running violent feud. There is, at this point, a certain West Side Story inevitability to The Death of Speedy Ortiz. But Hernandez undercuts this in his storytelling technique. Hernandez almost never shows us a major plot point as it occurs - even the actual death of Speedy takes place off-panel. This subtle approach keeps the reader interested in what is an admittedly a hoary plot. It also illuminates corners of the lives of characters who are not central to the narrative at hand, but who are important in the larger cycle that The Death of Speedy Ortiz is part of. Primarily this means Maggie, but also Izzy and Ray.

This is also Hernandez's first story that doesn't take place in the milieus he had mapped out for himself - weird science fiction foreign countries (as in Mechanics and Las Mujeres Perdidas) and the punk rock world. Hernandez introduces a new setting - the barrio - with its own rules and unforgettable characters. ('Litos, for example, is never more than a minor character, but is nonetheless completely compelling as an ageing street punk who can't escape his violent life.) Family issues become more important, as the relationship between Maggie, Esther and their Aunt Vicki is explored, as well as, to a lesser extent, the relationship between Speedy and Izzy Ortiz. (It's a family party in The Return of Ray D. that introduces Esther to Speedy.) In almost every way, this is a deeper and more complex work than anything Hernandez has done before. The Death of Speedy greatly rewards rereading.

It almost goes without saying that Hernandez's artwork in The Death of Speedy Ortiz is superb. But it is worth pointing out that the story marked another step along the road that was leading Hernandez away from the flashy, details "mainstream" artwork early in the series towards the more minimal approach he now favours. To draw so cleanly requires a great deal more confidence and virtuosity than drawing with lots of feathering and pointless details. The figures, their gestures and expressions, the panels and the storytelling - all these factors must stand on their own when not given the gloss of flashy detail. Again, the more one rereads The Death of Speedy Ortiz the more obvious this becomes.

FURTHER READING:

Jaime Hernandez at Fantagraphics Books

STILL ON HOLIDAY!

 

...but RYR will be back in early September.

See you then!

GONE ON HOLIDAY!

...but RYR will be back in early September.

See you then!

Flies On The Ceiling by Jaime Hernandez (No. 24)

Flies On The Ceiling (1988-1989)

by Jaime Hernandez

REVIEW BY RAY MESCALLADO:

(from The 100 Best Comics of the Century! in The Comics Journal #210, 1999)

Despite its lesbian/punk "Betty & Veronica" surface, the depth of Jaime Hernandez's Locas series was laid down from the very start of Love & Rockets: Hopey's rage, Maggie's insecurity, and the romantic Molotov cocktail when the two combined; Terry's jealousy and how it hid a profound sense of inadequacy; Daffy's... well, never mind Daffy. Most striking of all was Izzy Ortiz: we saw her as a present-day depressive punk bruja, only to be introduced in flashbacks to a more conventional, more stable Isabel. It took almost ten years for Jaime to tell us the story of Izzy's transformation, but it was worth it: Flies On The Ceiling is the best Locas short story from Love & Rockets and, I would argue, the best story Jaime has ever created, period.

Regular readers developed a feel for Izzy's personality over the years and seen her character given depth by her Cassandra-like role in The Death Of Speedy Ortiz. They also recognise the house from the cryptic "How To Kill A..." from Love & Rockets #1, as well as the potent visual markers of pre-Mexico Izzy. When her hair had grown long, we know that the change is complete, something significant has happened. When she tell us about the flies on the ceiling, references in past stories take on a whole new level of meaning. 

But this story functions just as well as a stand-alone fable, a tale of self-destruction. Isabel seeks to escape her past (including a divorce, an abortion and attempted suicide) and in Mexico unexpectedly finds a chance at redemption. When she finds out the devil has followed her, she runs yet again - to no avail. And when the Devil tells her, "It's not your sins but your guilt that allows me to come to you," the story takes a harrowing nightmarish turn. Jaime not only employs the ambitious narrative leaps that give his stories a distinctive economy and rhythm, for this story he creates a magical-realist symbology that resonates powerfully as psychological horror. The chiaroscuro clarity of his art makes the surreal extremes unnervingly accessible, allowing a seamless blend of dreams and memories and the unexplained. The ending is nuanced in its contradictions and confrontations: a conquering of fears, an acceptance of consequences, a loss of hope. The ultimate tragedy is writ clear in the last panel: that Izzy's fate, like all people's, isn't her burden alone.

FURTHER READING:

Jaime Hernandez at Fantagraphics Books