The Art of Jaime Hernandez: The Secrets of Life and Death - Hardcover

Hignite, Todd

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810995700 ISBN 13: 9780810995703

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 2010

Synopsis

In 1981 three Mexican-American brothers self-published their first comic book, Love and Rockets, and “changed American cartooning forever” according to Publishers Weekly. Over twenty-five years later it is still being published to critical and commercial success.

Jaime Hernandez’s moving stories chronicle the lives of some of the most memorable and fully formed characters the comics form has ever seen. His female protagonists, masterfully delineated with humor, candor, and breathtaking realism, come to life within California’s Mexican-American culture and punk milieu.

In April 2006 Hernandez began serializing his work with the New York Times Magazine—all of which will be collected here in full color. The notoriously private artist has opened his archives for the first time, revealing never-before-seen sketches, childhood drawings, and unpublished work, alongside his most famous Love and Rockets material.

Praise for The Art of Jaime Hernandez:
"The Art of Jaime Hernandez is proof of what I've been trying to convince comics artists to do for thirty years. FEWER lines and less technique with more 'human interest' was, and should still be, the way to approach our craft. Bravo, Jaime, for your body of work! Continue to be yourself." 
J-- ohn Romita Sr., artist, The Amazing Spider-Man

About this title

About the Author:

Todd Hignite is an acclaimed comics scholar, and founder and editor of the award-winning publication Comic Art. He is the author of In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists (2006), and co-editor of Strips, Toons & Bluesies: Essays in Comics and Culture (2006). He lives in Dallas, Texas.
 
Alison Bechdel is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of the autobiographical graphic novel memoir Fun Home (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

From Booklist:

Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez's Love and Rockets has been praised for its appealing characters, skilled storytelling, and gorgeously sleek artwork. This coffee-table tribute to Jaime showcases his illustration skills, in particular, tracing his art from early fanzine work and other juvenilia, through his first, early–1980s Locas stories depicting punk-rock chicas Maggie and Hopey, which made up in verve what they lacked in polish, to his recent work, in which his now-older heroines have gained a hard-won poignancy that his graceful visuals accentuate. Most of the selected artwork is individual pages and panels, though the inclusion of two complete stories permits full appreciation of Jaime's considerable abilities. In the incisive text, Hignite skillfully explicates Jaime's mastery of a complete arsenal of narrative devices and provides fascinating biographical details of the artist's childhood and adolescence in predominantly Hispanic Oxnard, California, which would become the Hoppers locale of the early Locas stories. The handsomely designed volume combines intelligence and eye appeal, much as do its subject's acclaimed comics. --Gordon Flagg

About this edition

• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0810995700
• ISBN 13: 9780810995703
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224