“…the more ethnic it is, the more universal it is….The whiter the Beach Boys are, the better they are. I know a lot of people don’t like the Beach Boys because they say they are too white. I say, that’s what’s good about them. That’s one of the main ingredients. Joni Mitchell, the Beach Boys, Buddy Holly are really great artists because they are as white as they can get.”
—Gilbert Hernandez, interview
I don’t know how, but I’ve so far ignored the Hernandez Brothers’ Love & Rockets. I read some of Jaime’s work when it ran in the Nytimes Funny Pages, but that was it. Now, I’m dipping into Gil Hernandez’s Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories. I’m really intrigued by the idea of comic stories set in the same fictional town (very much like Marquez or Faulkner), and Gil’s crazy telescoping (?) in between panels: in some of the comics, he’ll tell a whole story within one panel, then move on to the next.
Anyways, it’s great to “discover” someone who already has such an output.
and whaddya know? Feb. 1st is Gil’s 50th birthday! Too weird.