BOBC |
King, Daniel. "The Crafting of Queer Domestic Space in Jaime Hernandez’s Love and Rockets." International Journal of Comic Art 16. (2014): 413–30. Added by: joachim (8/4/15, 10:07 AM) |
Resource type: Journal Article Language: en: English BibTeX citation key: King2014 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: General Keywords: "Love and Rockets", Alternative Comics, Gender, Hernandez. Jaime, Space, USA Creators: King Collection: International Journal of Comic Art |
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Abstract |
This paper brings together archival research and existing critical approaches to the study of Hernandez’s work. Using critical perspectives on Chicano/a home spaces in conjunction with draft and archival material I interrogate the depiction of alternative homes and families in Jaime Hernandez’s contributions to the comic book series Love and Rockets, arguing not just for their centrality to the narrative of the comic, but to Hernandez’s conception of his characters and their world. Love and Rockets is an on-going, joint project between “Los Bros Hernandez”-brothers Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez. Since its self-published inception in 1982 each brother has contributed their own separate narratives to each issue. Over the last thirty years, Jaime Hernandez’s stories have followed the lives of Margarita “Maggie” Chascarillo and Esperanza “Hopey” Glass, queer working-class Chicanas living in the fictional Californian barrio “Hoppers 13”. Unable to rent or buy a home of their own, Maggie and Hopey live with female friends and relatives. Only recently have Maggie and Hopey found seemingly permanent homes, a development absent from the limited existing scholarship on the series. Recent critical work on Hernandez’s series has focussed on his depictions of Maggie and Hopey, their domestic lives, and their sexuality. Jessica E Jones and Esther Saxey both approach Hernandez’s work through a queer and postcolonial lens, drawing on Gloria Anzaldúa and Judith Butler to examine the spatial limits placed upon Hernandez’s characters and expressions of their sexuality. This paper has two objectives. The first is to update existing critical conceptions of Hernandez’s work. The second is to apply an awareness of the importance of Hernandez’s draft material to these critical readings of his work, demonstrating the importance and sophistication of the “home” spaces within the comic. Added by: joachim |