“This is real life, not fiction.”
 
Girls Against Boys sang those words a number of years ago, and they haven’t stopped being any less true. Defining our boundaries and what we hold to be ‘true’ is something that we battle with every day, whether we know about it or not. For most of us, we live in hope for the fiction, the dream that will take us away and make everything perfect. But there are some of us who know that sometimes, the real life can be so much better than the fiction…
 
But what if you could blend the two? What if you could create a fiction so perfect, so real, that you almost couldn’t tell the difference anymore? Would you do it? Where would you take it? What would be the point?
 
I guess these are questions that Jamie Hernandez has had to ask himself at some point in his life. As one half of the creative team behind Love and Rockets, Hernandez is responsible for dragging comics kicking and screaming into the modern age. But he did so by putting real life on the page, and by reflecting what he saw happening in his native California.
 
First published in 1981, Love and Rockets has continued to be at the forefront of the comics revolution, breaking boundaries, and staking a claim for comics to be taken seriously as a medium of storytelling. Many of the ‘alternative comics’ of the 80s carried on the torch passed to them by the underground pioneers of the 60s, and focussed on autobiographical stories that were as likely to break taboos as much as tell a story. L & R stood out by both grasping the inherent fantacism of comics, and subverting it in a number of different directions. Jamie’s ‘Maggie the Mechanic’ stories told the tale of a ‘pro-solar’ mechanic, in some kind of loosely defined future setting. However, the stories were also grounded in a gritty realism, with the interpersonal relationships between the characters being as important, if not more so, than the setting. Yes, Maggie might encounter a dinosaur after fixing a spaceship, but she’d also go to a punk gig afterwards, and agonise about her relationship with best friend and sometimes lover, Hopey. These characters initially inhabited a vaguely science fiction universe, but their concerns wee very earthly and real.
 
As time went on, the sci-fi elements faded into the background (but did not disappear completely), and were overshadowed by Jamie’s masterful storytelling, which placed the characters in a Californian suburb, know as Hoppers, and focussed on real life concerns such as love, betrayal, and friendship. These characters aged with us, learning more about themselves, making mistakes and growing older. The ‘Locas’ stories (as they are loosely termed) showed these people growing up in ‘real-time’, and when someone died in these stories, they didn’t come back. This was comics storytelling, but with a real edge.  
 
Part of that edge comes from the grimy and smoky setting of Los Angeles. The heat goes on, until the pavement starts to bake, and foolish decisions are made as people try and crawl into dark holes, escaping the ever-present glare of the sun. Hernandez fed his real life experiences into the strip, putting the hard-living punk kids of LA into the strips, creating as loveable a bunch of miscreants and troublemakers as you could ever wish to see.
 
As the LA punk scene quickly passed into legend, the Hernandez brothers were on hand to tell their side of the story.
 
“Around ’78 I started going to a few shows in L.A. driving down from Oxnard with my brother Gilbert and a cousin. By ’79 we were going almost once a week. By the time we decided to do comics for ourselves, punk still had a huge influence on me so it played a large part in my stories. Not so much creating "punk" art but showing the lifestyle, the kids that lived it.”
 
Indeed, Love & Rockets is not a ‘punk’ comic, as such, but does feed off the same restless creativity that fuelled some of the finest exponents of the genre. And how could one not be inspired by moving in the same circles as some of music’s most intense and notorious characters?
 
“From the L. A. scene I liked X, Black Flag, The Weirdos, The Germs, Fear, The Plugz, The Zeros, The Alleycats, The Go-Go’s, The Bags, Middle Class and a few more that I can’t think of off the top of my head. They all still hold up pretty well, some better than others.”
 
Amidst this whirlpool of experimentalism, Los Bros Hernandez helped kick-start a comics revolution. Love & Rockets begin picking up critical acclaim, as well as impressive sales, and by the mid-eighties, it had become a hip name to drop. Former members of Bauhaus called their new band Love & Rockets. Album covers began to feature the work of Jamie Hernandez. Love & Rockets t-shirts became a hip item to own.  
 
Slowly but surely, the comic began its journey into the dark heart of popular culture, making comics cool again. The two brother’s work contrasted greatly, with Gilbert’s ‘Palomar’ stories having a heavier, emotionally and politically charged overtone, whilst Jamie’s clean lines, and ensemble cast, gave the work an accessibility that underground comics generally lacked at the time. Perhaps the closest comparison would be that of the Cohen brothers, in that both have managed to translate a deeply personal and idiosyncratic vision to a mainstream audience. It’s a cliché to say, but if you don’t like comics, Love & Rockets might be the exception to the rule.
 
“One thing that my brother and I found out over the years was that L&R has always been hard to label. It has no hook, no instant selling point. Even though it’s basically a comic about people’s lives, it’s hard for most to understand that it’s mainly about Mexican-American punk rock women’s lives in Southern California. That’s sort of been a blessing and a curse over the years.”
 
The complete success of their efforts has led to Love & Rockets continuing relevance and longevity. The series went on hiatus in the mid nineties, before returning in 2001. As mentioned earlier, these characters have continued to age, and the book has grown up with its readership. Whilst Maggie and Hopey were once content to drift along through life, with no direction at all, the modern age finds the characters in a completely different place, as the pressures of ageing take their toll.
 
Another area in which Hernandez’ work stands out is its prominent female characters. The male dominated stigma of comics persists to this day, but Hernandez defies convention by being responsible for two of the most convincing characters ever created in the world of comics. Both Maggie and Hopey, alongside their extended supporting cast, are fully fleshed and multi-dimensional characters. Whereas a lesser writer might have created sketches, Hernandez goes further into making them seem, well…almost human.
 
“Believe it or not, the easy part for me is to make them human, it’s coming up with something for them to do that’s the hard part. Knowing that we were in this for the long haul I focused on my strengths so the characters could almost write the stories themselves.”
 
Indeed, these characters are so convincing, so alluring, that one almost finds themselves becoming a little too involved for one’s own good. Without wanting to beat around the bush, your correspondent will guiltily admit to having fallen in love with Maggie Chascarillio, the confused, bi-sexual mechanic from Los Angeles.
 
Unrequited love of the worst kind, Maggie can never return my feelings for her as she is:
 
a. In love with Hopey, and possibly a lesbian.
 
and,
 
b. A fictional character.
 
This has never happened to me before, and is an increasingly difficult prospect to come to terms with. There are a number of different ways of looking at this, but the most inescapable is that I have fallen for a fictional lesbian, who is basically the mind of a man. In terms of someone you might want to take home to meet your parents, it’s not going to be too high on the list.
 
“Actually, I’ve heard that a great deal over the years and it makes me proud and happy rather than creeps me out. It just shows that I did my job. I made her as believable as I could and admittedly, likable (or lovable) without having to pander to any phoney sales tricks. I believe that you’re going to have to like a central character if you’re going to want to follow them for some quarter of a century or so. Hopefully I did it right and didn’t paint a false picture.”
 
It doesn’t make me feel better, but at least lets me know I’m not alone. And as long as the comic continues, perhaps my chances with Maggie might get better.
 
One can only dream.