A short life of the author
Gilbert Hernandez (b. 1 February 1957) was born in Oxnard, California, to Mexican-American parents. He and his brother Jaime co-created Love and Rockets in 1981.
Life and Career
The Palomar stories — serialized in Love and Rockets and collected in Heartbreak Soup, Human Diastrophism, Poison River, and other volumes — follow the residents of Palomar, a small Central American village, across decades. The central figure is Luba, a buxom bathhouse owner with a complicated past. The stories are Marquezian in scope: they encompass births, deaths, political upheavals, and the entire arc of a community’s life.
Human Diastrophism (1988) — about a serial killer in Palomar — is a masterwork of comics storytelling, and Poison River (1994) — Luba’s backstory involving a corrupt Latin American entertainment industry — is his most formally ambitious work.
His later work — including Marble Season (2013) and the Fritz B-Movie series — extends his range into autobiography and genre pastiche.
Major Works and Themes
Hernandez writes about community, family, sexuality, violence, and the lives of women in Latin American and Latino communities. His visual storytelling is among the most sophisticated in the medium.
Key Works
- Heartbreak Soup (collected Palomar stories)
- Human Diastrophism (1988)
Collecting Gilbert Hernandez
Love and Rockets #1 (Fantagraphics, 1982) brings $100–$300. Collected editions bring $15–$40.