The L.A. Times has a long article up on Gilbert Hernandez, calling him the “John Lennon” of the famous Hernandez Bros. duo and talking to him about all sorts of things, like his latest book:
Hernandez’s latest work is “Chance in Hell,” the violent and perverse graphic novel about a vulnerable young girl found wandering in a city dump. When co-creators break up — Gilbert and his brother, Jaime, are still producing one “Love and Rockets” a year but have basically “gone solo” — their tendencies typically emerge full-blown.
At the risk of forcing the Lennon analogy, “Chance in Hell” is more Plastic Ono Band than “Imagine”: It’s raw and, at 120 pages uncut by Jaime’s more hopeful worldview and more graceful style, seems like a lot of pain and peril in one place.
For Gilbert himself, who hopes to produce a one-off each year, the process was liberating.
“There’s nothing harder than doing new stories with old characters,” he said of his multi-generational cast, headed by the fiery and large-bosomed Luba, who mostly reside in the vaguely magic-realist Central American town of Palomar. “Even though these characters are part of me. But I can’t do it anymore, after 25 years. While with ‘Chance in Hell,’ I took the chance to deal with a character, all in one place, and say goodbye to her. It wasn’t always easy, but it was freeing.”
October 8th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Chance in Hell is well worth the read; it’s one of the best GNs of the year, and actually quite terrifying.
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