Marble Season - Hardcover

Hernandez, Gilbert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1770460861 ISBN 13: 9781770460867

Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly, 2013

Synopsis

AMAZON.COM'S BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL OF 2013!

"Marble Season sometimes feels like one long, seamless shot of budding love, brimming violence and suddenly struck friendships. This is a highly physical, meta-Peanuts suburban universe in which adults are off-camera, but navigating other kids is plenty harrowing." -Washington Post Best Comics of 2013

The untold coming-of-age story from a contemporary comics master

Marble Season is the semiautobiographical novel by the acclaimed cartoonist Gilbert Hernandez, author of the epic masterpiece Palomar and cocreator, with his brothers, Jaime and Mario, of the groundbreaking Love and Rockets comic book series. Marble Season is his first book with Drawn & Quarterly, and one of the most anticipated books of 2013. It tells the untold stories from the early years of these American comics legends, but also portrays the reality of life in a large family in suburban 1960s California. Pop-culture references-TV shows, comic books, and music-saturate this evocative story of a young family navigating cultural and neighborhood norms set against the golden age of the American dream and the silver age of comics.
Middle child Huey stages Captain America plays and treasures his older brother's comic book collection almost as much as his approval. Marble Season subtly and deftly details how the innocent, joyfully creative play that children engage in (shooting marbles, backyard performances, and organizing treasure hunts) changes as they grow older and encounter name-calling naysayers, abusive bullies, and the value judgments of other kids. An all-ages story, Marble Season masterfully explores the redemptive and timeless power of storytelling and role play in childhood, making it a coming-of-age story that is as resonant with the children of today as with the children of the sixties.

About this title

About the Author

Gilbert Hernandez was born in Oxnard, California, and is the cocreator, with his brothers, Jaime and Mario, of the acclaimed comic book series Love and Rockets. Hernandez has won numerous awards for his stories, including the Kirby Award, the Inkpot Award, the Harvey Award, and the United States Artists Literature Fellowship. He resides in Las Vegas, Nevada, with his wife and daughter.

Reviews

In his Love and Rockets stories, Hernandez frequently depicted the children in his fictional village of Palomar with insight and sensitivity. In his latest work, the focus is solely on youngsters, particularly preadolescent Huey—seemingly an autobiographical surrogate for Hernandez—who enjoys a halcyon suburban existence with his brothers, teenager Junior and toddler Chavo. With their friends—mostly Hispanic, although little is made of their ethnicity—they idly spend their days reading funnybooks, swapping trading cards, listening to the Top 20 (especially the “Beatos”), and playacting homemade Cold War spy dramas. This will resonate with baby boomers who, like Hernandez, grew up in the 1960s; younger readers may be bemused or baffled by the quaint forms of predigital entertainment. Hernandez’s art, fitting the subject matter, leans toward the cartoony edge of his range, mostly utilizing medium shots of his young cast and a simple six-panel grid. Hernandez’s fans will likely read this with trepidation, waiting for something dark and disturbing to upend the placidity, but the artist’s softer side prevails throughout this charming if intentionally slight work. --Gordon Flagg

Edition details

• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1770460861
• ISBN 13: 9781770460867
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128