Jaime Hernandez facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Jaime Hernandez
Jaime Hernandez at the International Comic Fair of Barcelona (2025)
Born	October 10. 1959 Oxnard, California
Area(s)	Penciller, Inker, Writer
Pseudonym(s)	Xaime Hernandez
Notable works	Love and Rockets

Jaime Hernandez (born in 1959) is a famous comic book artist and writer. He helped create the popular comic book series Love and Rockets. He worked on this series with his brothers, Gilbert and Mario.

Growing Up with Comics

Jaime Hernandez grew up in Oxnard, California. He is the youngest of six children. His family loved comics! His mother read them often, and their house was full of old comic books. Everyone in the family would read them again and again. Jaime said, "We grew up with comics. I wanted to draw comics my whole life."

They read all kinds of comics. They liked superhero adventures, but also stories about everyday family life. Jaime was especially inspired by Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace and Dan DeCarlo's Archie comics. You can often see how these artists influenced Jaime's drawings. Other artists like Alex Toth, Charles Schulz, Jesse Marsh, and Jack Kirby also greatly influenced his work.

Jaime has always loved pro wrestling, especially women's wrestling. This interest often appears in his comics. He is also a big fan of punk rock. He even played in bands himself! Punk music is a constant part of his stories. His main character, Maggie, and her friends are often punk fans. He has also written stories about another character, Hopey, who plays bass guitar in a punk band.

Creating Love and Rockets

Jaime's main part of Love and Rockets is a long story called Locas. This story follows the lives of a group of mostly Latina characters. It starts when they are teenagers in the early days of the California punk music scene. The story then continues to their lives as adults.

The two main characters in Locas are Margarita Luisa "Maggie" Chascarrillo and Esperanza Leticia "Hopey" Glass. Their friendship and sometimes romantic relationship is a big part of many Locas stories. At first, the stories would switch between Maggie's sci-fi adventures and more realistic stories. In the sci-fi parts, Maggie traveled the world as a "prosolar" mechanic, fixing rocketships. The realistic stories showed Maggie and her friends in a gritty, mostly Latin neighborhood in California called "Hoppers."

Over time, Jaime mostly stopped using the sci-fi parts. However, he still sometimes refers to those early stories. He also occasionally draws short stories about superheroines, robots, and other sci-fi elements.

The Hernandez brothers once said they would stop Love and Rockets after issue 50. They planned to make their own solo comic books. For a few years, Jaime released several books about his Locas characters. These included Whoa Nellie, Penny Century, and Maggie and Hopey Color Fun. In these books, Maggie often had a smaller role.

Eventually, they started Love and Rockets again. Maggie became the main character once more. The new books were in a smaller, more traditional comic book size, not the large magazine style of the original issues. In 2004, the entire Locas storyline was collected into one large 700-page graphic novel.

Jaime Hernandez is known for drawing beautiful female characters with complex personalities. He has also worked hard to create male characters that are just as interesting. Jaime has often said that Maggie and another character, Ray Dominguez, show different parts of his own personality.

Other Creative Works

Besides his Locas stories, Jaime Hernandez has also worked for other companies. He has drawn for DC Comics and The New Yorker magazine. He has also created many album covers for musicians like Michelle Shocked. Earlier in his career, he designed covers for punk bands like Ill Repute and Dr. Know. His younger brother, Ismael, played bass in Dr. Know.

In 2004, Jaime contributed artwork for the Indigo Girls' album All That We Let In. In 2006, he created the artwork for the popular Los Lobos album The Town and the City.

From 1984 to 1985, Gilbert, Mario, and Jaime worked together on a sci-fi comic book series called Mister X. Jaime did the art, while Gilbert and Mario wrote the story ideas. The dark, stylish look of Mister X has influenced other works, like Batman: The Animated Series. However, the Hernandez brothers don't really like Mister X much themselves. They left the project because the publisher did not pay them fully at first. They were eventually paid for their work in 1988.

In 2006, Publishers Weekly magazine named Jaime Hernandez's work Ghost of Hoppers as the second-best comic book of that year.

Awards and Recognition

Jaime Hernandez has won many awards for his comic book work. Here are some of them:

• 1986 Kirby Award – Best Artist, Best Black-and-White Comic (Love and Rockets)
• 1986 Inkpot Award
• 1989 Harvey Award – Best Continuing or Limited Series (Love and Rockets)
• 1990 Harvey Award – Best Continuing or Limited Series (Love and Rockets)
• 1992 Harvey Award – Best Inker (Love and Rockets)
• 1998 Harvey Award – Best New Series (Penny Century)
• 1999 Harvey Award – Best Single Issue (Penny Century #3)
• 2000 Harvey Award – Best Inker (Penny Century)
• 2001 Harvey Award – Best Artist or Penciller (Penny Century)
• 2003 Harvey Award – Best Inker (Love and Rockets)
• 2004 Harvey Award – Best Single Issue or Story (Love and Rockets #9)
• 2006 Harvey Award – Best Single Issue (Love and Rockets, Volume 2, #15)
• 2007 Harvey Award – Best Cartoonist (Love and Rockets)
• 2012 Ignatz Award - Outstanding Artist (Love and Rockets New Stories)
• 2013 Harvey Award - Best Cartoonist (Love and Rockets New Stories)
• 2014 Eisner Award - Best Writer/Artist (Love and Rockets New Stories #6)
• 2014 Los Angeles Times Book Prize - Best Graphic Novel/Comics
• 2023 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for Love and Rockets: The First Fifty: The Classic 40th Anniversary Collection (Fantagraphics)

See also

In Spanish: Jaime Hernández para niños