By Paul Constant
Illustration by Tony Millionaire
Punk
Comix
I n Seattle, there's a neighborhood called George-
town that the mysterious forces of Real Estate and
Art have conspired fo label the Next Big Thing,
though right now it's still humble, a mix of single-
family houses and abandoned factories slowly being
repurposed into galleries and condos. There's pretty
much one block of commercial interest—a cozy cof-
fee shop, a coming-soon sign for a button-making
store, and a record store (literally, it sells vinyl) that
shares space with a bookstore called Fantagraphics
Books, owned by the graphic novel publisher of the
same name. Every single title that Fantagraphics has
in print is on sale at the store. Works by Robert
Crumb and Chris Ware stand alongside archived
comics collections like Krazy Kat and Popeye. The
thirty-year-old publisher uses the space lo celebrate
the work of its artists, and it devoted a weekend
recently to the twenty-fifth anniversary of a comic
book by brothers Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez.
On February 11, fans packed Fantagraphicss new
store for a panel discussion with the Hernandez
brorhers. People in their sixties who had never aban-
doned the counterculture joined with teenagers in
their awkward Coth-pop styles. In a comic book cul-
ture rarity, there were at least as many women as men,
and the ethnic mix was diverse, especially for Seattle.
A quick glance around the shelves of the bookstore
Paul Constant is a columnist and critic-at-Iarge Jbr The
Stranger, an alternative weekly in Seattle.
showed that the brothers have created about a third of
the store's stock. Fantagraphics's publisher, Gary
Groth, who has a reputation for being the angriest
man in comics with his hyperiiterate, splenetic rants
about the sad state of puhlishins, seemed downridit
star-struck as he conducted an interview with the
brothers. As they reminisced, it became clear that
there were many times, due to lack of funds, when
rhe partnership nearly came to an abrupt end.
For thirty years, Groth has published some of die
best graphic novels in the world, and for ;ilmost all that
time, the publisher has been struggling co keep aHoat.
In 2004, just afi:er a serious bankruptcy scare, Grorh
worked with Charles Schulz's estate to acquire the rights
to publish collections of every single Charlie Brown car-
toon in order for the next twelve years. The Complete
Peanuts not only lovingly archives Schuizs wildly popu-
lar work, it has ensured that Fantagraphics wont have
to worry about money for at least another decade.
One of the most obvious examples of the new finan-
cial freedom that Fantagraphics has is the storetront,
which opened in December of 2006. The Hernandez
brothers were among the first artists who were reward-
ed tor their loyalty to the publisher. Right ;ifi:er the
Peanuts deal, Fantagraphics published complete collec-
tions of Jaime's Locas and Gilben's Pabmar, the culmi-
The Progressive • 31

nation of twenty-three years of serial
stories. The books are sumptuous and
huge—Palonuir is 522 pages and Locas
is 704. They are, quite possibly, the
best graphic novels ever created.
Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez don't
seem like the kinds ot people whose
characters arc punk rock icons; they're
middle-aged blue-collar-looking men
with short hair, dressed in jeans and
glasses. Gilbert is the older ot the two,
and he's protective of Jaime. The
brothers each write and draw their
own comics and sell than packaged
together in an ongoing twice-yearly
comic book titled Love & Rockets.
Gilbert's comics are mostly about a
Latin American town called Palomar,
and Jaime's are primarily about two
friends, Maggie and Hopey, who work
dead-end jobs and really, really want
to play rock and roll.
Botli brothers present compelling
and strong female characters who
behave like actual people, even when
the stories arc thick with magical real-
ism. Their art is gorgeous—Jaime's got
the cleaner line, but Gilbert's more
impressionistic style is perhaps better at
conveying tone and developing themes.
Even though the brothers' stories are
unconnected, it's hard to imagine one
without the other; its as though the
two graphic novels are spiritually
linked. The brothers are aware of this.
Gilbert said that if Jaime is "on a roll
with a serious or heavy story," he'll "ea.se
otT' and tell a lighter or more experi-
mental story, and vice versa. The stories
are contoured with each other; created
side by side, they fit together as cleanly
as a stone that has been split in two.
Palomar is the kind of fiction, big-
hearted and wise, that brings ro mind
names like Steinbeck and Galeano.
The narrative centers on a woman
named Luba, who moves to Palomar
and quickly weaves herselt into the
Fabric of the community. Unlike many
comics, time p;isses in Palomar-—chil-
dren grow up over the course ot the
book, and start to come into their
own. As the reader dives fiarther into
the stories, the whole town becomes
revealed. Characters who stand in the
32 • April 2007
background in one story are the pro-
tagonists ot the next. They face every-
day problems: One man is simultane-
ously terrified of doctors and wracked
with concern that hes rotting to death
from some unknown illness. Another
woman keeps felling into bed with the
wrong men.
In an especially charming story, an
American phtuographer comes to
town, and everyone goes a little bit
crazy over him, before becoming disil-
lusioned by his hig talk about captur-
ing Palomar's poverty. Luba confronts
the photographer: "You want . . . a
picture of my family all sloppy and
ragged—to put in a book for che
whole world to see? What the hell do
you think we are? A treak show?" The
photographer tries to defuse the situa-
tion: "No! You do not understand; I
want to show the beauty of your town
. . . your lives." Then Luba goes nuts:
"Beauty?! YouVe going to make hun-
dreds ot dollars by making us look bad
and youre talking about beauty?!"
And then she stomps on his foot and
spits out those beautiful comic book
swears: "@*#*@!!@." indeed.
Locas is entirely different, pop-cul-
ttiral and American. At the beginning
of Love cr Rockets, Jaime was drawing
the things that he was interested in:
dinosaurs and aliens and wrestling.
He quickly fell in love with his char-
acters, though, and wrote them into
situations to see what they would do.
"After a while, the rocket ships went
away," he says. "There was no room.
I write what I know, so they can't go
chasing crooks. They just have to talk
to each other." This, of course, is an
understatement: Maggie and Hopey
have the kind of frieiidshiji—com-
plex, ditficult, adoring—that most
authors have to explain to their read-
ers. It's a treat that's unparalleled in
modern fiction. And part of the plea-
sure is that it's been running tor a
quarter century. Through fights and
boyfriends and hookups, through
Hopey's irresponsibility and Maggie's
weight fluctuations, the relationship
has grown as quickly and as power-
fully as their creator's skills.
CAPITULO 4
D
uring the discussion, the
Hernandez brothers fre-
quently make rock and roll
references; they talk about how they
"teed oft the audience" when a siory
is released and that their "punk rock
ethos" wouldn't allow them to com-
promise their work for any ot the
"mainstream comics publishers"
when they were getting popular.
Their artwork has appeared on
countless records and rock show
posters. For a decade, it wa.s almost
impossible to walk into a got)d night-
club and not see a half dozen people
with bootleg Love & Rockets patches
sewn on their jackets or taped to their
guitar cases.
When asked how their Latin
American heritage affects their work.
Gilbert invokes the films of Kuro-
sawa and Fellini: "To me, the more
Italian, the more German, the more
Japanese a story is, the more universal
it becomes." Jaime points out that lie
was lauded for depicting Hispanic
gang violence and its aftermath in
Love & Rockets with his "Death ot
Speedy" storyline, but that he didn'i
want to be an issue-focused author:
"Someone said I should write more
about the politics ot East L.A., but
I'm not fi-om East L.A., I'm from
The brothers do create works for
other publishers, hut Fantagraphics,
and Love & Rockets, is where they're
the happiest. A few months ago,
Jaime completed a .serialized comic
strip for The New York Times Maga-
zine, which is undoubtedly the
largest audience either of the broth-
ers has ever had. Talking about the
experience, though. Jaime seems
relieved to be going back to the part-
nership with his brother. With a shy
smile, he says that the story will soon
be run in its entirety in Love & Rock-
ets, where Jaime wouldn't be con-
strained by the page and content
restrictions that mass media fame
requires: "I'm adding tour more
pages and putting all the cusses back
in." Nobody laughs harder ai that
than Gilbert. •