Jaime Hernandez

I am embarrassed to admit just HOW LONG this has been on my shelves unread. I did really want to read it! I love Maggie & Hopey! But as convenient as it was to have all these stories together in one place, it did NOT make for the most convenient format to read. Eight million pages and seven hundred pounds, this book. Not a book to slip in your purse or read in bed, or even very comfortably hold in your lap.

BUT, the Sapphic September challenge finally gave me the much needed push to get this show more book out and I am SO GLAD that I did. In fact, my only criticism of this book is that there wasn't MORE!?

For the uninitiated, Maggie & Hopey are recurring characters created by Jaime Hernandez in the Hernandez brothers' long running comic series Love and Rockets. They are bisexual Mexican-American women in Southern California who become friends, sometimes lovers, but always present in each other's tumultuous lives. Their storylines start out larger than life, with Maggie a rocket mechanic and also dinosaurs? The storylines get more human-sized before long (though they never abandon this backstory). The scale of that life is still pretty large, with punk bands on tour and professional wrestling and Penny puttering around in mansions, but the heart of the story is always these two girls, and how they keep finding each other even as their lives seem to keep pulling them apart.

I love them so much. show less

For the uninitiated, Locas collects the Maggie & Hopey stories from Love & Rockets. Well, the subtitle says Maggie, Hopey, & Ray, but frankly I could do with a lot less of Ray (even if the Ray stories get me a lot more of Vivian, who I also love). I was so delighted to get a copy of Locas II, which finally catches up to where I had started reading Love & Rockets during my all too brief single-issue comics-buying days.

I love these queer aging Mexican American girls, both the realistic bits & show more the surreal ghosts & the incredible shrinking Izzy bits. I love the weaving story- and time-lines, the tiny little micro stories that take place on a single page, but then tie into larger storylines much later. I love their messy relationships & self doubt.

I also love that I saved this for a readathon, it was great to snuggle up with this monster of a book and catch up with old friends. show less

I've actually read all these stories before, spread out over nearly ten years across fourteen issues of the (ir)regular Love and Rockets series. Frankly, these tiny vignettes didn't make much sense then, but Jaime Hernandez's art is just irresistible, so I kept following along.

But now, gathered under one cover and read in just a couple hours, it all finally makes sense.

Maggie Chascarillo and Hopey Glass are present for the sake of longtime readers, but the majority of the book puts the show more spotlight on Anoush "Tonta" Agajanian, the younger sister of series regular femme fatale Vivian Solis.

Tonta -- a nickname meaning stupid, silly, or foolish in Spanish -- is a stupid, silly and foolish teenager bumbling through life in the summer after high school graduation. She's shunted around the family, living with her older sisters who treat her poorly physically and emotionally.

One of her great pleasures is attending an art class taught be Ray Dominguez, but Tonta manages to mess that up for herself too, but it does bring her life into closer contact with Maggie and puts her on the road to better days.

Hernandez makes it all a little goofy and a little sad, a little humorous and a little tragic. He even manages to throw in a couple of marriages that will be of interest to old fans like me.

FOR REFERENCE:

This Love and Rockets collection was originally serialized in Love and Rockets Vol. III [a/k/a "New Stories"], Nos. 7-8 and Love and Rockets Vol. IV, nos. 1-2 and 6-15.

Contents: Our Lady of the Assassinating Angels -- If It Ain't Fixed, Don't Break It! -- Eek! Tonta! -- Ilsa of the Islands by Tonta and Gomez -- Forest Spirits -- Billy, Be a Hero -- Frank Lopez -- 99° 36° -- Tonta -- Lifer Drawing -- Wary Mirth -- Eche Meve Dis -- Jury Doody -- Cherry Berry Richie Pip Perry Pembo -- Exactamente! (Lo Que Dijo Gordman) -- Rock Your Baby -- Tonta's Mind at 3AM -- Hi! -- Coach Tonta -- Wow! -- Maggie and Ray at 9:44PM -- Helen Heels -- Eppie Brianstone -- Wedding Walabaloo -- I Guess . . . -- Brown Alice, Alice Brown -- Locas -- It's Not All Love -- Not Today, You Don't -- Lader Daze show less

Long-time comic book creator Jaime Hernandez makes his children's book debut in this slim collection of stories, featuring three Latin American folktales told in graphic novel form. Prolific children's author F. Isabel Campoy provides a brief introduction on folktales in general and Latin American folklore in particular, emphasizing its celebration of strong women, and then the tales themselves are presented:

The Dragon Slayer, adapted from a story of the same name in John Bierhorst's Latin show more American Folktales: Stories from Hispanic and Indian Traditions, in which a young girl finds work in the Kingdom of Dragonia, falls in love with the king's son, and with the help of a magical stick given her by an old woman she helped, manages to slay a dragon, steal a magical ring, and save her beloved.

Martina Martínez and Pérez the Mouse, test by Alma Flor Ada and taken from Ada & F. Isabel Campoy's Tales Our Abuelitas Told: A Hispanic Folktale Collection, in which the eponymous heroine eventually marries a charming mouse, only to almost lose him when he falls into the soup pot. I have encountered a Puerto Rican variant of this tale before, in Pura Belpré & Carlos Sanchez' Perez and Martina, although there the heroine is a cockroach.

Tup and the Ants, also adapted from a story of the same name in John Bierhorst's Latin American Folktales: Stories from Hispanic and Indian Traditions, in which a lazy third son triumphs over his elder brothers by being clever, and by using the help offered by some ants.

The book closes with an afterword exploring some of the themes in the stories included, as well a bibliography.

As someone who loves folklore of all kinds, I enjoyed The Dragon Slayer: Folktales from Latin America, appreciating both the stories themselves and the introduction and afterword. I don't know if Hernandez' artwork was quite to my taste, but I liked seeing these tales translated into graphic novel form, as I know many young people particularly enjoy this form, and this will make the stories accessible to them. If I had any complaint, it would be that I wish the specific cultural origins of all three stories was included. There was mention of Tup and the Ants being from Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula in the afterword, but no other specifics were given, something I found unsatisfying, particularly as emphasis was put on the diversity of Latin American traditions. While these may be stories which are widespread in the region, some information on the specific variants being used would be welcome. I also wished that John Bierhorst, whose prolific work in the field of folklore I have found very enjoyable and informative, had been given the same credit, in the main body of the book, as Alma Flor Ada was, on the title page of Martina Martínez and Pérez the Mouse. Credit for the two tales which were adapted from Latin American Folktales: Stories from Hispanic and Indian Traditions is given on the colophon, but not in each folktale's title page, in the book. Leaving those critiques aside, this is one I would recommend to young folklore enthusiasts, and to anyone looking for Latin American folklore for children. show less