282 HERNANDEZ BROTHERS
a weakening Hergé in 1981, after nearly 46 years, generated intense media attention.
On March 3, 1983 Hergé died in Brussels.
Today his works are held in ever higher esteem, and at auction his originals com-
mand higher prices than those of any other comic artist. On May 22, 2009, exactly
102 years after Hergé’s birth, the strikingly-designed Musée Hergé at Louvain-la-Neuve
was inaugurated to considerable acclaim.
Selected Bibliography: Farr, Michael. Th e Adventures of Hergé: Creator of Tintin. London:
John Murray, 2007; Goddin, Philippe. Hergé: Lignes de vie. Brussels: Moulinsart, 2007.
Raphaël Taylor
HERNANDEZ BROTHERS. Brothers Gilbert “Beto” (1957–) and Jaime “Xaime” (1959–)
Hernandez are among the most important fi gures to emerge from the development of
independent or alternative comics in the 1980s. Another brother, Mario (1953–), has
had a less visible career, but his occasional contributions should be noted. Raised in
Oxnard, California, Los Bros Hernandez (as they call themselves) were encouraged to
read comics by their mother, and were infl uenced by an eclectic range of popular culture,
including superhero comics by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko , A r c h i e comics drawn by
Dan De Carlo, Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace , and the underground comics
of Robert Crumb. Aspects of Mexican American culture (such as masked wrestlers)
would also infl uence their work, along with cheap horror fi lms and the punk rock music
that fl ourished in Southern California in the late 1970s.
Following a self-published issue in 1981, their black-and-white comic Love
and Rockets has been published and regularly reprinted in various formats by
Fantagraphics since 1982. Generally working separately in their own distinctive
series, one of their signifi cant mutual contributions has been to bring a Chicano per-
spective to a largely Anglo tradition in American comics: they have also been especially
popular with female readers, when that audience has remained elusive for creators of
American comics. Th e work of either brother would constitute a major contribution
to American comics: together, produced in counterpoint, their work is an even greater
achievement. Gilbert’s densely populated series Palomar , inspired by Latin American
magical realism, is set in the mythic Central American village of Palomar (the name
often used to identify the series), while Jaime’s narratives center around the Chicana
friends and sometime lovers, Maggie and Hopey (Las Locas, the name summarizing
the series), and the ethnically diverse Southern California subculture surrounding
them. Frequent side projects by the prolifi c brothers have both derived from and
diverged from Love and Rockets , but the rabid fan devotion the series generated has
virtually demanded that they persistently return to their most beloved settings and
characters, whom the artists have allowed to age and evolve.
Even before the original run of Love and Rockets (50 issues, 1981–96) was con-
cluded to allow them to pursue other projects, both brothers had often worked on
other comics, including writing and drawing early issues of the science fi ction comic
