Jaime Hernandez: "I don't know if I still like to draw."

BarcelonaIf last year It was his brother BetoThis year, Jaime Hernandez (Oxnard, California, 1959) is visiting Comic Barcelona. The cartoonist has been chronicling the family, emotional, and life experiences of Maggie Chascarrillo and Hopey Glass in the comics saga for four decades. Crazy, a monumental project that has evolved from fantasy pulp with rockets and monsters in the long-running melodrama. Over the years, Hernandez has observed with an empathetic and complicit look like their characters they grew older and has followed them through crushes, heartbreaks, separations and reunions that make up one of the most fascinating fictional exercises in modern comics. But in Drawing from nature (The Dome, 2025), behind delivery of Crazy, The real protagonist is Tonta, a confused and unpredictable teenager who revolutionizes the lives of Maggie and her partner, Ray.

Last year his mother passed away. Five years ago he told me that she passed on her love of comics to all her children.

— That's right. Parents usually aren't happy that their children love comics, and they even throw them away. But my mother didn't. She encouraged us to read them because she loved them as a child too. In fact, she gave my older brother money to go buy them! And she was always encouraging us to draw, because it was a better way to get us to be quiet than sitting in front of the television.

And did you like the comics your children made?

— She was actually happy that we were doing something. We had jobs thanks to comics. But after a while, she grew tired of our stories, and one day, she actually gave us back a bunch of the comics we'd given her. And we were like, "Okay, Mom, thanks." What can we do?

Five years ago she told me that she created the character of Tonta because she needed a break from Maggie after the end of Love's botched jobs (The Dome, 2015). In Drawing from natureHowever, the paths of both characters cross.

— I wanted to bring the two characters together because Maggie is getting older and doesn't want to run around being a jerk and getting drunk anymore, so I needed younger characters. But, after all, they live in the same town, so eventually they'd have to meet. And I liked showing that Maggie no longer has patience for kids who behave like that. she I did it when I was young.

When readers of Crazy When we first met Maggie, it was hard not to fall in love with such a charming, honest, and adventurous character. Tonta, on the other hand, doesn't make things so easy for the reader.

— True, it's not easy to like the character at first, but as I get older, comic book readers change and prefer more daring characters. When he appeared Ghost World, in which the main characters are all hate compared to Maggie and Hopey, I decided to create Vivian, who was perfect because she's the ultimate baddie: she can do anything and always looks good. And Tonta is kind of the same; she can do anything because she has nothing to lose. Maggie and Hopey, on the other hand, have a lot to lose because they're trapped by their past and must adapt to their surroundings.

You've always said you identified with Maggie. Do you also identify with this more mature Maggie?

— Yes, because Maggie and I We've grown up together. When I think about how my life has changed, or how the world has treated me, or how I've treated it, I realize the same thing happens to Maggie. People see her differently because she's older and has a more responsible role, but there's a part of her that hasn't grown up and remains the same.

Maggie's final scenes on the beach, distancing herself from the younger generation, have a final, almost farewell flavor. Is this the end of the character?

— Part of your life is over, yes. It's like your beach hat, lost in the ocean. Maggie is starting a new chapter in her life, and this is a challenge. After Drawing from natureI'm having a hard time finding Maggie's new story. I don't know where she is, how she is, or how being married will affect her.

Chris Ware commented the other day that some cartoonists like Charles Schulz or George Herriman worked on their works until the end of their lives, and that he wanted to do the same. And you?

— Yes, I want to keep doing it Crazy until the end, but I don't know when that will be. Maybe it's because I can't draw anymore, or because I don't want to draw anymore. Over time, my art increasingly serves the story; the drawings aren't that important. I try to do the best I can, but the characters are more important. Their personalities have taken us so far that the drawings don't matter. In fact, I don't know if I still like drawing. When I was little, I drew because people really liked the way I did. In school, the only reason I didn't get hit was because I could draw; but did I really want to? I'm tired of art. It's a good thing I became someone who tells stories. It took me a while to become a writer, rather than a drawer, but now writing rules. The proof is that if you put me in front of a sketchbook, I don't even want to touch it; I don't want to draw. The other day I was having lunch with a former animator, and I asked him how long it had been since he drew anything for himself. And he said he hadn't done that in 20 years. But I'm better than him: I haven't drawn anything for myself in 30 years. It's funny; we no longer want to do what we're best at.

And what drives you to continue making comics?

— When I was the only one in the class who knew how to draw, and no one else had any connection with art or drawing, people would say to me, "Oh, I love your drawing! I wish I could do it myself." And I thought, "Wow." So I haven't given up, and I keep drawing for all those who can't, or don't know how. I don't do it for myself, I do it for you.

An eternal discussion of fans of Love and Rockets, the magazine you and your brother publish, is who's better, Jaime or Beto. What do you think of this artificial rivalry?

— He makes us laugh. All of us brothers were very competitive, but when we started the comic, Beto and I realized that he knew what he wanted to do and I knew what I wanted to do. So we never stepped on each other's toes. I've learned a lot from him. I don't know if he's learned anything from me, because he's older. We don't compete with each other, because that would ruin everything; it could end our relationship and the comic, because we'd become rivals.

From time to time they appear in mine timeline old drawings of characters from the Legion of SuperheroesWas it just a commission from DC Comics or do you have a fondness for the characters?

— I have fond memories of the comic; they were fun to read when I was a kid. But it was basically a job for me. When we published the first one Love and Rockets, people in the industry told us: "Hey, this is really cool." And we thought: "We did it! We've made it!" But we quickly realized that they didn't want us for what we did, but because they saw us as having the necessary talent to draw. SpidermanFor me, it was like, "No, thanks, I already have my comic." But a lot of people took it the wrong way, as if I was full of myself. "Who do you think you are?" they'd say. And I'd say, "Just a guy who does what he loves. When was the last time you did what you love?"

If you had to tell the story of how a punk kid from Oxnard, California, became one of the most important comic book authors of his generation, what would the first scene be?

— Phew. I don't know. I know what the first and last words would be. It would be, "Hey, not bad for a couple of Mexicans from the small town of Oxnard, California." My brother and I came from nothing. My father wasn't a producer, and my mother didn't work in the fashion industry. They did what they had to do to make a living and make a living. We had no support and started from the bottom. We did everything ourselves.