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Jaime Hernández (comics)

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Jaime Hernández
Jaime Hernández at the International Comic Fair of Barcelona (2025)
Born (1959-10-10) October 10, 1959 (age 66)
Oxnard, California, U.S.
AreaCartoonist, Writer, Penciller, Artist, Inker
PseudonymXaime Hernández
Notable works
Love and Rockets
AwardsSee below

Jaime (sometimes spelled Xaime) Hernández (born October 10, 1959) is an American comic artist. Along with his brothers Gilbert and Mario, he is the co-creator of the alternative comic book Love and Rockets.

Early life

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Jaime Hernández grew up in Oxnard, California.[1][2] He is the youngest of his family, with four older brothers and one sister.[3] 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.[3] "We grew up with comics," Hernández said. "I wanted to draw comics my whole life."[4]

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. Hernández was particularly influenced by Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace and Dan DeCarlo'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, Charles Schulz, Jesse Marsh and Jack Kirby were also hugely influential.[3]

Hernández has a lifelong fascination with pro wrestling, especially women's wrestling, and it has been a regular part of his work.[5] He has also been a lifelong punk rock fan, and it has been a constant element of his work. His Love and Rockets heroine Maggie and her friends are almost all punk fans; and some of the story follows her friend Hopey playing on tour with a band.[6]

Career

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Gilbert and Jaime discuss their careers in 2016

Love and Rockets

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Hernández, along with his brothers, has written and drawn the comic Love and Rockets since 1981. His main contribution is the ongoing serial narrative Locas which follows the tangled lives of a group of primarily Latina characters, from their teenage years in the early days of the California punk 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 neighborhood known as "Hoppers". Eventually Hernández 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.[7][6]

The Hernández brothers originally ended Love and Rockets with issue 50 in 1996, 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.[8]

The entire Locas storyline to date was collected into one 700 page graphic novel in 2004.[9] In 2006, Publishers Weekly ranked Hernández's work Ghost of Hoppers second on its critics' poll of the best comic books of 2006.[10]

Between 2008 and 2016 the comic was released as an annual graphic-novel size issue, called Love and Rockets: New Stories.[11] In 2012 a collection of stories from issues #1 and 2 of this was published titled God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls, which Glen Weldon for NPR called "the brightest, purest, most quintessentially superheroic superhero yarn in years."[12] In 2014 another collection was published titled The Love Bunglers, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Graphic Novel/Comics.[13][6]

In 2016 Love and Rockets returned to its original, magazine-sized, format.[8] Two further collections of Hernández's recent stories for the comic were published in 2019, Is This How You See Me? and Tonta.[14][15] His next collection Life Drawing, published in 2025, again won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Graphic Novel/Comics.[16][17]

Hernández has been praised for the physical beauty of his female characters as well as their complex personalities. His female characters struggle with their body image, openly discuss their physique, and come in a variety of shapes and sizes.[11] He has said that Maggie and Ray Dominguez both represent different aspects of his own personality.[18]

Other work

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Hernandez discussing the importance of punk in 2016 (alongside Ed Piskor, discussing hip hop)

In addition to Love and Rockets stories, Hernández has also done occasional work for the New York Times and The New Yorker.[19] He has made the album art for records including Lung Leg's Maid to Minx,[20] Michelle Shocked's Captain Swing,[21] the Indigo Girls' All That We Let In,[22] and Los Lobos' The Town and the City.[23] Earlier in his career Hernández drew flyers for Southern California punk bands such as the Circle Jerks and Suicidal Tendencies.[24] He also did album covers for some "Nardcore" punk bands, such as Ill Repute and Dr. Know,[25] the latter of whom featured his brother Ismael on bass.

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.[26] The Hernández brothers themselves hold little affection for it, however, with Gilbert once describing it being "like a bad zit... it just sort of happened." The Hernández brothers left the book when Vortex failed to pay them in full.[27] 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."[28] The Hernández brothers were indeed ultimately paid for their work on Mister X in 1988.[29]

In 2018 a children's comic by Hernández titled The Dragon Slayer - Folktales from Latin America was published by Toon Books.[30]

Awards

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References

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  1. ↑ Aldama, p. 119.
  2. ↑ Wilson, Alex (2022-11-03). "Oxnard's Hernandez brothers celebrate 40 years of Love and Rockets at Bart's Books". VC Reporter | Times Media Group - News, Culture, Arts and Opinion. Retrieved 2025-03-30.
  3. 1 2 3 Art Baxter. "Locas: The Maggie And Hopey Stories by Jaime Hernandez". National Association of Comics Art Editors. Archived from the original on 18 November 2011. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
  4. ↑ Aldama, p. 120.
  5. ↑ Roe, Mike (August 2, 2021). "1960s LA Women's Wrestling Comes To Life In 'Queen Of The Ring' Art Book". LAist. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  6. 1 2 3 Dolan, Martin (March 20, 2026). "La Vida Loca". The Baffler. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  7. ↑ Barnett, David (May 10, 2016). "'There's nothing like it in comics' … how Love and Rockets broke the rules". The Guardian. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
  8. 1 2 Rayner, Alex (August 10, 2016). "Love and Rockets rides again: 'we influenced a whole lot of cartoonists'". The Guardian. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
  9. ↑ Sansom, Ian (November 27, 2004). "Punk rocket". The Guardian. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
  10. ↑ "The First Annual PW Comics Week Critic's Poll". Publishers Weekly Online. Publishers Weekly. 2006-12-19. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
  11. 1 2 Royal, Derek Parker (2013). "The Worlds of the Hernández Brothers". ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies. 7 (1). Dept of English, University of Florida. ISSN 1549-6732. Retrieved 2026-04-26.
  12. ↑ Weldon, Glen (August 2, 2012). "Jaime Hernandez Bridges The Indie-Vs.-Cape Divide". NPR. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  13. 1 2 Swanson, Clare (April 20, 2015). "Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Winners Announced". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
  14. ↑ Mouly, Françoise; Bormes, Genevieve (March 8, 2019). "A Conversation with Jaime Hernandez About His New Graphic Novel". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  15. ↑ Brown, Hillary (July 17, 2019). "Tonta". The Comics Journal. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  16. ↑ Shapira, Tom (April 17, 2025). "Life Drawing". The Comics Journal. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  17. 1 2 Mendez, Malia (April 17, 2026). "L.A. Times Book Prize honorees named — many celebrate resistance: 'When people rise, empires always fall'". the Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  18. ↑ Guilbert, Xavier (October 1, 2013). "Jaime Hernandez by Xavier Guilbert". Du9. Retrieved April 24, 2026.
  19. ↑ "California Book Club: Jaime Hernandez Transcript". Alta Journal. January 20, 2023. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  20. ↑ Todd Hignite, M. (2006). In the Studio - Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300133875.
  21. ↑ Selke, Lori (March 22, 2013). "Michelle Shocked's Short Rise and Long, Confounding Fall". San Francisco Weekly. Archived from the original on April 13, 2018. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  22. ↑ Ferber, Lawrence (April 14, 2004). "Music: In and Out with The Indigo Girls". Windy City Times. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  23. ↑ Berlin, Steve (June 18, 2018). "Los Lobos to Play Ojai's Libbey Bowl". Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved April 28, 2026.
  24. ↑ Baker, R.C. (April 20, 2010). "Jaime Hernandez's Graphic Behavior". Village Voice. Retrieved April 28, 2026.
  25. ↑ Arsenault, Marc (March 2, 2011). "Jaime Hernandez y otros en San Jose". Maximum Rocknroll. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  26. ↑ "Dean Motter's Retro-Futurist Masterpiece 'Mister X' Returns to the City of Nightmares in 'Eviction'". Comics Alliance. Archived from the original on 27 April 2015. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  27. ↑ "Hernandez Brothers Leave Mister X Over Payment Dispute," The Comics Journal #101 (August 1985), pp. 19-20.
  28. ↑ Herzog, Marty (November 1986). "Bill Marks". Comics Interview. No. 40. Fictioneer Books. p. 59.
  29. ↑ "Hernandez Brothers Paid," The Comics Journal #122 (June 1988), p. 22.
  30. ↑ "Love and Rockets' Jaime Hernandez Creates Graphic Novel for Kids". Publishers Weekly. April 3, 2018.
  31. ↑ "1986 Jack Kirby Awards". Hahn Library. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  32. ↑ "Inkpot Awards". Comic-Con. 6 December 2012. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  33. ↑ "Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 18 August 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  34. ↑ "1990 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  35. ↑ "1992 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  36. ↑ "1998 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  37. ↑ "1999 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  38. ↑ "2000 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 27 August 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  39. ↑ "2001 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  40. ↑ "2003 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 8 November 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  41. ↑ "2004 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 27 August 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  42. ↑ "2006 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 27 August 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  43. ↑ "2007 Harvey Awards". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 8 November 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  44. ↑ "2012 Ignatz Awards". Small Press Expo. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  45. ↑ "2013 Harvey Award Winners". The Comics Reporter. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  46. ↑ "2014 Eisner Awards Winners". Comic-Con. 26 July 2014. Archived from the original on 1 April 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  47. ↑ "PEN Oakland awards and winners". PEN Oakland. Retrieved April 24, 2020.

Sources

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Further reading

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