Born in 1959, Jaime Hernandez enjoyed a pleasant childhood in Oxnard, California, with four brothers and one sister. Their mother had been an avid comic book fan as a girl, and she passed onto them a love of Jack Kirby and

Steve Ditko’s Marvel comics, Hank Ketcham’s (and Owen Fitzgerald’s) Dennis the Menace, and the Archie comics line. A further strain of DNA was added when an older brother smuggled R. Crumb’s Zap underground comics into the house.

As puberty and other interests invaded, Jaime’s enthusiasm for mainstream comics waned. The Los Angeles punk rock scene began to thrive, and this anarchistic and gritty aesthetic invaded Jaime’s approach to writing and drawing. Mostly self-taught (although he cites the significant impact a figure-drawing instructor had on his skills), Jaime assimilated these influences, and in his hands the much hyped and often misunderstood punk netherworld became a very real, habitable place populated with human beings rather than stereotypes.

Such were the humble beginnings of Love & Rockets, the internationally acclaimed series Jaime created with his brothers, Gilbert and Mario, in 1982. Thirty years later, Love & Rockets has been translated into many languages, won numerous awards for excellence, and is one of the defining post-underground comic book titles of the last quarter century.

Jaime’s crisp, elegant, instantly recognizable style has made him an in-demand illustrator whose work has appeared on CD and DVD covers, and in magazines from The New Yorker to The New York Times Magazine. He continues to chronicle the adventures of his “Locas”, Maggie and Hopey (and friends) in the pages of the annual Love & Rockets New Stories.

 

 

 

Jaime Hernandez resides in Pasadena, California, with his wife and daughter.

 

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