Love and Rockets - Wigwam Bam - Jaime Hernandez

Love and Rockets was a series that I kept meaning to read for years but never did.  I finally got around to it and picked up the very nicely packaged Fantagraphics reprints that were published in the last couple of years.  This time around, the publisher decided to separate Jaime's work from his brother Beto's work resulting in a neat collection of nearly all of Jaime's L&R stories in five volumes.  For those who don't know, when L&R started out way back in the 1980's, it was sort of a semi-futuristic sci-fi story about a female rocket mechanic named Maggie.  As the series progressed, Jaime dropped the rockets and sci-fi stuff and focused what he is best at - stories about people.

Once I got passed the rockets stuff, I was hooked and couldn't put the books down.  Jaime is one of the greatest American comic book artists of all time.  His characters are so real and well written, that you can't help but think they're all based on real people.  His artwork is no less amazing - a clean, cartoony style bordering on realism with the ability to convey an incredible range of emotion and expression. He is truly a master of the medium.

My favorite story in the collection is probably Wigwam Bam, which focuses in part on the love triangle (or quadrangle if you coun't Hopey) between Ray, Maggie, and Danita.  I looked around for a nice example and found this great page from the story.  In it, Danita hears that Ray's old flame Maggie is back in town and begins to wonder what that means for her and Ray.  Her emotional flip from elation to devastation is executed so well and with so few words.  I especially love panel five with the passenger of the car yelling at Danita for not watching where she's going.  I also recall being blown away the first time I saw the final panel on the page - so subtle and just incredible.  I'm really happy to add this one to my collection and hope to add more in the future. (click for larger image)

UPDATE 12/3/2015!!!

By sheer chance, I was sufing the web and I came across an interview with Jaime Hernandez.  On the website were examples of his work, and a couple of photos of him.  I was amazed when I looked at this photo of him from Emerald City Con in 2009.  Take a look at what is on the table in front of him - my page!!  He must have liked it to have it on display like that.  So cool!