MADreads

Loving Maggie

May 13th, 2009 Dennis - Central

The Education of Hopey Glass is the latest published work I’ve seen from Jaime Hernandez and it was one of the more enjoyable works I had the pleasure of reading (and re-reading) in the past year.

Jaime has been drawing comics since the early eighties.  He and his brother Gilbert (Beto) have been collaborating on the Love and Rockets comic book pretty much ever since.  But they’ve also been working independently of each other.  Gilbert’s stories usually center around the citizens of a fictitious central American town called Palomar.  While Jaime’s stories usually involve a group living in a Los Angeles area barrio.  Two of Jaime’s main characters are Maggie and Hopey.  And yes, I kind of fell in love with Maggie all those years ago.  So did Hopey.  So did Ray.

I never cared too much for Hopey, though.  Not just because she’s my rival for Maggie’s affection.  (For one thing, she’s a smoker– bleh).  Hopey always seemed to be the one who was causing trouble–just for the fun of it.  Maggie always seemed to go along, but she was never the instigator.  Maybe that’s just faulty memory on my part.  A lot of years have gone by and it shows in the characters.  These people have all changed with the passage of time– particularly Maggie (that “Snickers diet” really changed her).

In this collection Hopey is now living with another woman, tending bar in the evening, and preparing to start a new job as a teacher’s assistant.  She’s also starting to realize that she, and everyone around her, is aging.  That doesn’t happen often in comics.  Her new job as a teacher’s assistant for a class of kindergarten kids is a change for her, where the teacher she is partnered with keeps insisting that Hopey must talk to the kids, rather than forcing her will upon them.

Ray appears in the stories in the second half of the book, and he’s starting to feel his years too.  In contrast to the stories dealing with Hopey, Ray conveys much of his story with a more-or-less internal monologue, sharing his thoughts and feelings with the reader in a way that Hopey never does.  His job situation, like Hopey’s, is changing as well, and he too is nervous about taking on the added responsibility.  He also becomes involved with Vivian (a woman he refers to as The Frogmouth) a dancer, aspiring actress, all around sexpot, and something of a willing victim to many of the more violent men in her life.  It’s a pretty desperate world that she’s skirting the edge of, and Ray seems to be the one decent thing in her life, despite her more-than-occasional demeaning treatment of him.  It’s a complicated, disturbing and yet enthralling situation.  Oh, and Viv claims that she and Maggie were also lovers.

I should note that the stories/scenes are fairly short bits of narrative– usually about four pages long with six panels per page.  There’s also a charming new (secondary?) character called Angel, young enough to still be innocent about lots of things, who appears in some short scenes of her own in the middle of the book.  She also appears in stories with Hopey and Ray, too.  As does Maggie.  But Ray and Hopey never interact with each other in these stories.

Part of what I like so much about this work is the contrast between Hopey and Ray.  And the parallels, now that I think about it.  Hopey ignores the emotional needs of her live-in lover.  Ray is often being verbally emasculated by Vivian.  Hopey can’t drive and needs rides from people she eventually seems to alienate.  Ray spends his time driving Viv and her friend to acting auditions.  Hopey never seems to think, she just acts.  Ray spends most of his time agonizing about how to get back with Maggie, but he can’t seem to do anything about it.

Id versus ego.

I also recommend this book it for the art work (and not just because there are pictures of naked women either).  I always liked Jaime’s art a little better than his brother’s.  It always seemed a little more realistic that Beto’s. Though the work of both brothers is done predominantly in black-and-white (and throughout this volume), Jaime’s lines were always a little straighter, the figures more naturalistic, the facial expressions more evocative.

And there are some striking illustrations included at the back of the book that show some of the characters in some more artistic poses.  One is a collection of what appear to be school pictures of Hopey, probably from kindergarten right on up through high school and it’s a fascinating progression of her from a youngster with a toothless smile, to a sullen punk with short, bleached hair and sunglasses, to a demure, lovely photo of her around prom time wearing what appears to be a tuxedo.  Ray appears in a more film-noirish setting, with contrasting shadows, while Vivian and her girl friend hover in the background.

You might be wondering, with this being an ongoing series, whether this is a good time for a new reader to dive in to this story.  Well, you’ve gotta start somewhere.  And we do have most of the Love and Rockets books currently in print on our shelves.  Think of it as a soap opera told in panels.  And it’s every bit as compelling– in a good way.  Like most long-running soap operas, there’s a good reason why the story has been going on as long as it has.  These are interesting stories involving people we’ve come to care about.

Entry Filed under: Graphic Novel, Short Stories