The Hernandez Brothers ─ Love, Rockets, and Alternative Comics

This book focuses on the work of Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Mexican-American brothers whose graphic novels are highly influential. Their brother Mario is an occasional collaborator. The Hernandez brothers started in the alt-comics scene, where their series Love and Rockets quickly gained prominence. They have since published in more mainstream venues like Marvel and DC Comics, but they have maintained an outsider status based on their own background and on the content of their work. Gracia argues that Los Bros Hernandez have worked to create a new American graphic storytelling that, while still in touch with mainstream genres, provides a transgressive alternative from an aesthetic, gender, and ethnic perspective. The brothers were able to experiment with and modify these genres by taking advantage of the editorial freedom of independent publishing. This freedom also allowed them to explore issues of ethnic and gender identity in transgressive ways. Their depictions of Latinidad and sexuality push against the edicts of mainstream Anglophone culture, but they also defy many Latino perceptions of life, politics, and self-representation.

Enrique Garcia is associate professor of Spanish at Middlebury College. He is the author of Cuban Cinema After the Cold War.