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theblackestofsuns · 1 year

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“The Death of Speedy Ortiz”

The Girl From H.O.P.P.E.R.S. (2007)

Jaime Hernandez

Fantagraphics Books

#The Girl From H.O.P.P.E.R.S.#Love & Rockets #Jaime Hernandez #Fantagraphics Books #Great Comics #Great Comic Art #The Death of Speedy Ortiz

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thisiscomics · 7 years

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This is an amazingly powerful story, where most of the significant events are alluded to rather than spelled out for the reader.

Every page is a nine panel grid (with the exception of page 2, the title page, which features the sub-title “The Story of Isabel in Mexico”), and the format is used as a powerful visual tool. Panels, and even pages, pass without any dialogue, while the 9 panel rhythm, along with the juxtaposition of images, creates an emotional punch from page one, and demands the reader pay attention.

The first page features Izzy typing, a role we have seen her in before. These images are interrupted by a smashed frame holding a wedding photo, a pro-life protest outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic, Izzy arguing with her parents (one assumes), a close up of a tearful Izzy and bandaged wrists in a hospital. A clear sense of memories breaking into the present is created, each panel representing an event that she regrets, combining into the guilt that drives her away.

The above panel ends two pages which are relatively dialogue heavy, as Isabel is invited into the home of a man and his son, working for them in order to have a place to stay. Inviting her to eat at the table, rather than in her room, and comparing that tableau to family life triggers the final panel- hand to her head, separated from life (the family) by a window that evokes prison bars. The man stands outside, clearly present and perhaps waiting for her attention, while Izzy fades into shadow, just her and a crucifix, as a symbol of the guilt that haunts her.

A subsequent sense of happiness, as she accepts the idea of becoming part of this family, is ultimately destroyed by this guilt. The Christian imagery increases- she encounters a demonic figure and runs away, the crucifix in her new room falls from the wall and stands inverted and she sees the devil in various forms. A further flood of memories, or nightmares, more abstract than the first page, ultimately serve as some sort of catharsis, allowing her to eventually (her hair has grown quite a bit by this point) return home just as she came- first to the man and his son, then back to California, where her devil is still waiting. Izzy is therefore not free, but is at least no longer afraid.

Exactly what has happened to her in Mexico is open to interpretation, due to the expressive nature of the images, but she is now able return to face her demons, having seen them reduced to the size of flies rather than remain an overwhelming and monstrous presence. It’s not a particularly happy ending, but there is a sense of hope in the final panel: the man and his son lightly outlined against the black panel, with the crucifix white against the darkness. The inversion from a black crucifix on page 4 to a light one here symbolises a purification of sorts, following on from the nightmarish images of Izzy being purged of things demonic before her return, leaving something brighter in her wake, a memory of happiness in Mexico.

From “Flies on the Ceiling” by Jaime Hernandez, reprinted in The Girl From H.O.P.P.E.R.S. A Love and Rockets Book

#comics #fantagraphics #love and rockets #jaime hernandez #flies on the ceiling #the girl from h.o.p.p.e.r.s

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re-readingcomics · 3 years

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Comics Read 8/18-8/31/2021

Over the past almost two weeks, the comic collection I mostly read from was The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. A Love and Rockets Book, the second collection of Jaime Hernandez’s Las Locas comics. (Hernandez tries out multiple spellings of his named throughout the book, which sometimes feels like an extra subplot.) After a couple of tales about Rena Titañon, which feel like continuations of her story from the first volume, Maggie the Mechanic, the stories here start to feel very different than in the earlier volume. Late in this collection, there is even a story called “The Adventures of Maggie the Mechanic” that seems exist to parody the kind of misadventures that Maggie got into there. This vignette is revealed to be a comic the current Maggie is reading and hates.

Part of the reason for this change of feel is that Maggie and Hopey are separated for the majority of the collection. There is also less Hopey in general, which is something of a relief. I generally like punk music, but many of the scenes of Hopey and her various bands with their frequent name changes make me glad I missed the 1980s puck scene and it’s permitted bigotries. (I got the same feeling from reading Bob Mehr’s Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.) The less time this volume spent with the punk scene, the closer it felt to Beto Hernandez’s Palomar stories, and there are references to/and maybe a cameo from those stories.

Hopey’s absence makes room for Ray Dominguez, Maggie’s other love interest. It was kind of shocking how much I liked this relationship. I was tired of Maggie tripping over her own feet trying to catch up with Hopey and other Locas, as well as Hopey’s general callousness towards whoever was close to her. Ray was able to provide Maggie with some steady affection. Given how tortured much of the rest of her life is, I liked it. Especially after Maggie’s time on the road with her abusive aunt, Vicki Glori. Sure, things don’t work out, and the way they don’t work out was there from the start, but still…

It was also around the time that Ray showed up that I wished I could really put out of my mind the fact that I first heard of Love and Rockets as a precursor to Strangers in Paradise, so that I could stop comparing them in my head. I’m not going to write more about it here and hope that I can forget this.

Before I can say something like “these stories are more grounded than the earlier ones,” Penny Century comes back into the plot and brings the weirdness of those stories. This includes the mansion with too many rooms and the surreal effect it has on who ever is visiting. I kind of liked Penny in the first volume. She was mostly a super hero wannabe, much more conventionally feminine than the other Locas, and with a devilishly rich boyfriend. But here, with the diabolical boyfriend turned husband, her suddenly both absentee and controlling behavior towards Maggie, I really hated her. She’s apparently a super villain in more recent stories, which, makes sense.

The same day I finished The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. I also finally got around to reading the sixth issue of Lazarus Risen. I had known it had been a while since the fifth issue was released, and the letters column made it explicit that it was ten months. The issue was good. I thing Greg Rucka and Michael Lark are better at how the new format should affect pacing. This feels like part of a climactic story, though I’m not sure that it is. I really liked finally being able to meet the matriarch the Carlyle family, though I’m less interested the origin story of the Hock/Carlyle feud. The art is terrific and I really liked having the opening include Forever interrupting a Hock Revivalist meeting. I will reread all of this when it’s over.

#what i’m reading #comic books #love and rockets #Las Locas #jaime hernandez #Lazarus Risen #image comics #Greg Rucka #Michael Lark #Santi Arcas #Simon Bowland

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mabith · 4 years

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April reads! Fewest books read in a month for YEARS. I am having some lockdown crises. Also I binge read two terrible fan-translated gay novels. My brain is Having. A. Time. Favorites are bolded. The Lady's Handbook for her Mysterious Illness – Sarah Ramey Everything is Beautiful and I am not Afraid – Yao Xiao Tharntype – Mame Romola – George Eliot (I love Eliot so freaking much) The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. – Jaime Hernandez Free Thinker – Kimberly A. Hamlin Utopia for Realists – Rutger Bregman Dear Fang, With Love – Rufi Thorpe Deathless Divide – Justina Ireland Last Witnesses – Svetlana Alexievich Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Olga Tokarczuk You're in Love With an Idiot – Shui Qian Cheng The Art of Resistance – Justus Rosenberg

#personal #books #reading #2020 reads

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lmbolger · 7 years

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