Various Writings

Robert Boyd

I have been writing a lot lately, but mostly for other publications. Here are some links for the writing I have been doing.


I visited Houston artist Trenton Doyle Hancock at his studio and came away with this article which was published in Art Ltd. 


Cometbus 57 is the latest issue of the venerable zine (first published in 1981). This issue is dedicated to New York area cartoonists and members of the comics world. I wrote about it for The Comics Journal. 


Garden Of Flesh by Gilbert Hernandez is a hardcore pornographic version of the first nine chapters of the Bible. I published this review in The Comics Journal. Warning--it's definitely not safe for work!

Report from the Golden Age of Art Comics: Jim Woodring, Gilbert Hernandez and 40 Years of Minicomics

Robert Boyd

Continuing my survey of current comics I've read, here are a bunch of comics published by Fantagraphics. As I've written before, I was an editor for Fantagraphics in the early 90s. I started with them when they moved from Los Angeles (the Simi Valley, actually) to Seattle in 1989. This move, weirdly enough, resulted in a huge windfall for them. They sold a house that they owned in Agoura Hills and bought two houses in Seattle! Co-publisher Kim Thompson told me that the company made more profit from that one deal than they had made since they began publishing.

But life with a small-press alternative publisher is always a bit precarious. Fantagraphics has gone through several serious, company-threatening crises. Shortly after the move to Seattle, the dire implications of the "black and white bust" of 1987 caught up with them. Great titles that had sold very well just a year or so earlier fell off precipitously. That's when they started Eros Comix (taking a page from Barney Rossett and Grove Press--publishing smut to finance art) as well as when they ramped up their catalog sales.

I realize this company history is probably a bit dull (don't worry, I discuss actual comics below). The only reason I mention it is that the death of co-founder Kim Thompson has created another crisis situation for the company. So they are running a Kickstarter campaign to pay for their spring season (book publishing is organized into two "seasons" for some reason). When I started writing this post on November 6, they were $73,000 into their campaign for $150,000. By November 12, they had raised the entire amount. (That said, they still have some good premiums and can use the extra money if you find yourself with an urge to spend some mad money between now and December 5.)



I think Kickstarter is a great tool for publishers, whether self-publishers or small presses like Fantagraphics. The reason is that they essentially act as catalogs for future books--your "donation" is really just an payment for a book that will be published and sent to you later. (For this one, I ordered a boxed set of the complete run of Eightball by Daniel Clowes.)

I don't want to belabor this. Instead, let's look at a few more-or-less recent Fantagraphics books.


Problematic: Sketchbook Drawings 2004-2012 by Jim Woodring (Fantagraphics Books, 2012). It's impossible for me to be objective about Jim Woodring. For one thing, I've known him ever since he and his family moved to Seattle when I was living there and working for his publisher. Then in 2011, I curated an exhibit at Lawndale of work by Jim Woodring and Marc Bell. Problematic is a collection of work from Woodring's sketchbook. The sketchbook is a key locus of creativity for many cartoonists, most notably Robert Crumb and Chris Ware, who have had pages from the sketchbooks printed in handsome volumes. Unfortunately, their example can be intimidating for other cartoonists. They want to create sketchbooks as fully realized as Crumb's and Ware's. Woodring writes in the introduction:

I would buy a big, beautiful new blank book with the determination to fill it cover-to-cover with the best work of which I was capable. [...] Instead, I would fill the first twenty pages or so with stiff, sterile, overworked displays of autodidactic lug-muscle. These would be followed by desperate attempts to loosen up, resulting in eyesores so hideous that I would declare the book ruined and throw it away.

It was the discovery of small Moleskine notebooks that allowed him to embrace sketchbook life. The Moleskine notebooks are small enough that he can hold it in his hand as he draws. The beige paper preempts the desire to use white-out to cover his mistakes.  As a consequence, the work is fresh and spontaneous.


Some, like this one, are drawings from his mundane existence, pretty much realistic. Of course, he embraces some things that the rest of us might recoil from. (I was pleased to see that one of the "realistic" drawings he did was of a nut on the street in Houston from his time here.)


But most of the drawings are along these lines--fantastic, bizarre, highly imaginative.

You flip through this small but thick book having your mind repeatedly blown by Woodring's fecund imagination and astonishing drawing prowess. These drawings are blown up to 140% of their original size, which is astonishing. Most illustrators will tell you that shrinking a drawing is preferable because it covers up a lot of little mistakes. Conversely, blowing it up amplifies its imperfections. So for an artist to deliberately blow up his work implies one of two things. First, that the artist has no ego. He doesn't care if you see his mistakes. The other possibility is that the artist knows he is the shit and that his drawings will look excellent even when blown up. Curiously, Woodring may possess both of these seemingly contradictory qualities.


Fran by Jim Woodring (Fantagraphics Books, 2013). According to the flap copy, this book can either be read before Congress of the Animals, after Congress of Animals, or as a stand-alone story. In Congress of Animals, Woodring's protagonist, the odd cat-like "funny animal" character Frank leaves his hitherto self-contained world, the Unifactor, and meets Fran. Although the characters Fank and Fran seem sexless, we can call Frank a male and Fran a female based on their names alone. But they are also very similar (as are their names). Fran has a slightly different head than Frank (longer ears) and her body is subtly different.

Fran finds them in wedded bliss. One day a hideous creature steals an object of Frank's. Frank chases him, kills him, and discovers that the creature had a hoard of stolen objects. Frank and Fran examine the haul and discover amongst the varied items a projector. The projector works by having the user wear it on one's head. Then it shows what's happened to the wearer in reverse chronological order.


Jim Woodring, Fran page 24

Fran however is unwilling to try it (presumably because she'd like to keep her past secret) and in her anger breaks the machine. Frank is extremely angry with her and Fran runs away. I won't say any more about the story--you'll have to read it yourself.

Like all Frank stories, this one has a lot of mysterious, fantastic events. They are compelling in the same way Dr. Seuss books are compelling. I want to read this over and over as much as I wanted to read Happy Birthday to You! over and over when I was 8. Woodring's way of drawing the fantastic is so beautiful and precise--his work is a strong argument for high craft in comics.


Jim Woodring, Fran page 73

I mean, look at page 73 when Frank's rocket crashes into a moon. Wow.


Jim Woodring, Fran page 75

And one other thing I want to mention about Fran and all of the Frank stories. Woodring is a great designer and architect.  I would love to see actual furniture (and even actual buildings, like the one on page 75) constructed out of Woodring's imagined furniture and buildings. They're fanciful, sure, but otherwise seem solid and more-or-less plausible. Maybe if I win the lottery, I'll build "Woodringland." Until then, I'll have to be satisfied with his beautiful books.


The Children of Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books, 2013). Gilbert Hernandez has been publishing work with Fantagraphics since the early 80s. He and brothers Jaime and Mario created the magazine Love & Rockets, one of the finest and most artistically significant comics of the past 50 years. Hernandez's best work is based around the inhabitants of a small Central American town called Palomar. The Children of Palomar returns to this setting. It's composed of four related stories. Back in the 80s and 90s, they probably would have been published in four consecutive issues of Love & Rockets. But these were originally published in  an Italian co-publication with Coconino Press, which says something about the creative ways independent publishers like Fantagraphics must employ to finance projects.


Gilbert Hernandez, The Children of Palomar page 5

The original title of the Coconino Press/Fantagraphics copublication was New Tales of Old Palomar, which is very apt. Hernandez is taking the chronology of Palomar that he has already established in many, many stories from Love & Rockets and shoe-horning new events, some of which fill in gaps that had only been implied in earlier stories. For instance, the two swift-moving thieves on page five are the sisters Tonantzin and Diana.


Gilbert Hernandez, The Children of Palomar page17, panel 1

Tonantzin and Diana will become very consequential characters in the Palomar stories, but their introduction to the town had never been depicted until now.


Gilbert Hernandez, The Children of Palomar page 72

In the third story of the collection, Tonantzin is older (a young teenager, I'd judge) and an accepted member of the community. She sees a strange baby who speaks to her. This is a device Hernandez has used before--the vision that only certain people can see but that other people accept as real. See for example the classic story "Sopa de Gran Pena" from 1983. It's because of touches like these that Gilbert Hernandez's work has been called magic realism. Obviously this is characteristic of many Latin American writers from "el boom", but the writer Hernandez reminds me of is Nigerian writer Ben Okri, the author of The Famished Road, whose characters live simultaneously in the quotidian world and a supernatural world that is overlaid on ordinary existence. Tonantzin can see the baby, the "Blooter," because the Blooter is trying to communicate to her. But other people know the Blooter exists, even if they can't perceive it.

Hernandez was born and raised in the United States and has stated that the Palomar stories originally came from stories told him by older relatives about Mexico. But the supernatural or magical elements don't seem "authentic"--they seem more like things that Hernandez has made up. After all, he didn't grow up in an isolated village in Central America, nor is he an anthropologist who has studied the rituals and beliefs of other cultures. What he has done is to imagine a supernatural existence in Palomar that exists simultaneously over the mundane rational world. This overlayed supernatural world is half folkloric and half science fictional, which reflects Hernandez's own cultural background.


Gilbert Hernandez, The Children of Palomar page 72, panel 2

This can be seen in the home of the bruja that Tonantzin visits on page 72. Tonantzin is trying to get the Blooter to leave her alone and is asking for magical help. The bruja's home has a large circular window. Hernandez grew up reading American comics. That window is a visual quotation from Dr. Strange, the supernatural title created by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee in the 60s.


Frank Brunner, commissioned drawing of Dr. Strange and Clea, 2002

Here is an example of the window drawn by artist Frank Brunner, who drew Dr. Strange during a memorable run in the mid-70s. Dr. Strange allowed artists like Ditko and Brunner to go wild visually, but their stories were always fundamentally pulp stories--good versus evil in a magical setting. In Hernandez's Children of Palomar, the magical stuff is simply an aspect of reality, to be dealt with like any other aspect of reality. It's there to be endured and enjoyed.


Treasury Of Mini Comics Volume One edited by Michael Dowers (Fantagraphics Books, 2013). Three years ago, Fantagraphics published an 892-page brick of a book called Newave!: The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s (848 pages) I guess enough people liked this super-obscure corner of comics history that they put out a second book, which by being subtitled "Volume One" implies future volumes as well.

The first thing you notice about this book (and its precursor) is the diminutive trim size--4 3/4 by 6 inches. There is a historical reason for this size--it is very close to the size of many 8-page mini-comics over the past few decades. Here's how it worked. You drew your comic and then pasted it down onto two 8 1/2 x 11 boards, four pages of the comic on each. You photocopied them onto both sides of a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 inches copy paper. You fold this over once, then once more until you have basically a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch booklet. You trim it and staple it, and for the cost of one double sided copy and two stapes (one if you're being thrifty), you have yourself a sweet little comic book.

What this book demonstrates is that from the late 60s almost to the present, this has been a popular way for people to do self-published minicomics. Dowers had lots to chose from to fill this volume. In 1992, I started writing a column for The Comics Journal called "Minimalism" that was devoted to minicomics. I wrote it through 1996, after which point it was taken over by Tom Spurgeon and other writers. In my experience looking at hundreds of minicomics, they came in all shapes and sizes. The 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch 8-pager was common, but I don't think it made up the majority of published minicomics. I mention this because it shows how much is left out of Treasury of Mini Comics and Newave!, despite the fact that they collectively have 1700-odd pages. The amount of utterly ephemeral self-published material that falls into the general category of "mini comics" is immense, and because of its underground existence, it will never be fully catalogued (even though there are some large collections--for example, the one at Washington State University at Pullman.)


Matt Feazell, Cynicalman Meets the Boss pages 4 and 5, 1994

The work in Treasury of Mini Comics is presented more-or-less chronologically, starting with comics by Leonard Rifas and Justin Green from 1969 and 1972 respectively. Then there is a long section of the cartoonists who were active in the 80s, like Matt Feazell. Feazell is particularly important because he created a style that was extremely well-suited to the format he published the work in. By using stick figures, he was able to cram a huge amount of content into each page. And he decisively demonstrates how expressive such seemingly limited drawing can be. This is a model for many of the best minicomics in this volume.


Macedonio Manuel Garcia, Tales From the Inside #3 pages 6 and 7, 1982

Another important aspect of minicomics is that they gave voice to people who way outside mainstream culture. Colin Upton has produced hundreds of pages of droll, whimsical, revealing comics while living an extremely modest life on disability payments in Vancouver, Canada. And then there is Macedonio Manuel Garcia (above) who did comics while serving time at the Ramsey Unit prison. Considering that the average alternative comics artist is white middle-class 20-something hipster, minicomics offer a little variety.


Marc Bell and Rupert Bottenberg, Arbeitees: Einer Industrium Dokument den Marc Bell ut Rupert Dottenberg pages 4 and 5, 1996


Fiona Smyth, At Monastiraki pages 2 and 3, 2008


Peter Thompson, I'm the Devil pages 4 and 5, 2007

Unless you draw very small and very clean, the 8-pager format doesn't lend itself to ordinary comics narratives. It's not uncommon for minicomics to be just a series of full-page drawings around a theme or idea. A bunch of the work in this volume falls into that category, such as the ones above by Marc Bell, Peter Thompson and Fiona Smyth. I tend to like this kind of work a lot--it seems very appropriate for the tiny format. Otherwise, you have to force yourself to draw in a minimal style.


Carrie McNinch, You Don't Get There From Here #11 pages 14 and 15, 2008-09

But as I've stated in regard to Matt Feazell, minimalism works for some artists like Carrie McNinch, who not only manages to put an exceptional amount of personal detail in her diary comics, but also provides a sound-track.


Ron Regé, Jr., Yeast Hoist #6 pages 10 and 11, 1997

One of the wonderful things about a book like this it shows you work of artists who later achieved acclaim (at least in the small pond of art comics) before many people knew about their work. Ron Regé, Jr. is one example (he also drew the cover). In addition to the artists already mentioned, this book has work by Esther Pearl Watson, John Porcellino, J. Bradley Johnson, Molly Kiely and others whose work is now well-known and highly respected. Aspiring cartoonists take heed. If no one wants to publish your work, publish it yourself on the cheap.

Treasury of Mini Comics volume 1 is a meaty, entertaining volume.

Comics at the Emergency Room

Robert Boyd

I mentioned in my last post that Comics: Works from the Collection of Robert Boyd is still on view at the Emergency Room gallery at Rice. I hope readers will indulge me as I publish a few installation shots.



The Emergency Room has a very cool neon sign. It's called "The Emergency Room" because it is all about showing solo work and installations by emerging artists in the Houston area.



So what are a bunch of old comics pages doing there? Some of these artists could indeed be thought of as "emerging," but about half of them are dead. All the pieces come from my personal collection, so Chris Sperandio suggested the way to think of it was as art from an emerging collector.





That's flattering, I guess, but feels a little weird. All I did was to acquire this work. It's not that big a deal. Instead, I think that we keep the idea of "emerging" when we think about comics as an emerging art form. That's an arguable notion for an art that has been around since the early 19th century, but it is emerging into the consciousness of the art world. There are a few artists who have gallery representation and whose work is showed by museums. But within the art world, there is little institutional support for comics. As far as I know, the MFAH (and its many counterparts around the nation) are not buying up pages of comics art.



So what, one might ask? Comics is way outside the mission of a museum like the MFAH. Sure, but consider that the MFAH collects furniture and jewelry and decorative objects and films many other items that some might suggest are not capital "A" Art. (The retired longtime director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art--and former director of the MFAH--Philippe de Montebello said that the Met shows "every category of art in every medium from every part of the world during every epoch of recorded time.") The same is true with other museums all over the country. So from where I sit, this is still a blind spot for art institutions in the United States. (And sorry if I'm picking on you, MFAH. You know I love you.)



Anyway, it has been a personal mission of mine to bring the art world and the comics world closer together in whatever small way I can. That began with Misfit Lit at the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle in 1992 (whence it traveled to LACE and several other venues). It continued with Walpurgis Afternoon (a two-person show featuring work by Marc Bell and Jim Woodring) in 2011 at Lawndale.


art by Peter Bagge

So with this show, I am again storming the castle wall of the art world armed with a peashooter. But eventually an army of critics, artists and curators each with her own peashooter will shoot enough peas to crack that wall. And maybe then we'll cease having shows like Splat Boom Pow! The Influenceof Comics in Contemporary Art (2003) at the CAMH, shows that honor comics by featuring one actual comics artist out of the 40 artists whose work was included.


clockwise from the top left: Jim Woodring, David Collier, Skip Wiliamson, Alison Bechdel, Alison Bechdel, Skip Williamson, Dylan Horrocks, David Lasky

But mostly it was a chance to show off a little bit of my collection and have some bragging rights. It's up through April 11. I'd be honored if readers of this blog would come see it.


clockwise from the top left: Gilbert Hernandez, Harry Tuthill, Harold Gray, Jaime Hernandez

The gallery is on what most people would call the second floor of Sewell Hall (but because they start counting floors from a sub-basement, it's officially on the fourth floor). The hours are Thursday, 5-7:00 p.m., Saturday, 11-3:00 p.m. and by appointment.

art by Walt Kelly

It Was 30 Years Ago Today

Robert Boyd


Jaime Hernandez, spread from Love & Rockets #21, July 1987

Well, maybe not today, but 30 years ago, the first issue of Love & Rockets, by Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Herenadez, was published. I was a freshman in college and wasn't reading comics. But in my sophomore year, I ended up with a room-mate who was. Through him, I was hearing about some of the cool comics being published, including Love & Rockets. The first issue I got was issue two, so I guess I can say that Love & Rockets has been my favorite comic for about 29 years. For nearly three decades, I have been reading and loving the work of Gilbert and Jaime (older brother Mario bowed out fairly early on, leaving the book to his two brilliant little bros). I've even bought original artwork by both the Gilbert and Jaime--prized pieces in my art collection.

To celebrate their thirtieth anniversary, I'm going to reprint a blog post from 2006 (Jesus Christ! I've been blogging for more than six years!) from my old blog, Wha'happen? It's a little out of date--hell, it was out of date when I wrote it. Hope all my fellow Love & Rockets devotees like it. (If you want to read more Love & Rockets--and you should--here's the place to go.)

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Below is a hastily assembled (and probably incomplete) annotated list of songs referenced in the great comic, Love & Rockets. This is one of the all-time great comics, written and drawn by two brothers, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. Each brother does his own very different stories, but both were (and presumably still are) punk rock fanatics and music lovers in general. This is reflected in their work.



From Jaime's big book, Locas:

• "All Alone in the World"--a song from a 60s Mr. McGoo special, sung by Maggie when she and Rena are lost in the desert.
• "Friday on My Mind" by the Easybeats. Maggie, Hopey and Doyle are driving together to get rid of Maggie and Hopey's foldout couch. The song, of course, is a great example of working class Australian '60s garage rock, a huge hit.
• "Two Faces Have I" by Lou Christie. This is a song that Hopey's band plays that Hopey always thought was called "Do Vases Have Eyes." The song is pretty weak--not nearly as good as Christie's "Lightning Strikes." But it comes from an interesting period--after Buddy Holly died but before the Beatles come on the scene. Rock was barely hanging on by its fingernails, and people like Lou Christie, the Four Seasons, and Motown each kept it alive in their own way.
• "Valentine" by The Replacements. This is what Ray is listening to on his cheap boombox while talking about Maggie with Daffy and Joey. It basically shows that Ray has (then) current tastes in punk, but its unusually romantic nature foreshadows his relationship with Maggie. It's a less obvious choice than, say, "Alex Chilton" from the same album.
• "You" by X. Another romantic number. Maggie is torn between Ray and Hopey. The song is reputed to have been written by Exene Cervenka for Viggo Mortensen.
• "Whipping Post" by the Allman Brothers. Hopey has joined a hippy cover band, and this is one of their songs. This song is sort of meant to represent the opposite of Hopey's tastes, and therefore her misery at being in this situation.
• "I Can't Do Anything" by X-Ray Specs. A flashback to Maggie and Hopey's early punk days.
• "Dead End Justice" by the Runaways. Ditto.
• "Wig Wam Bam" by Sweet. Jaime named a longish story after this song. This was a special song for Maggie and Letty in their childhood, before Letty died in a car crash and Maggie meets Hopey. Basically, even though Maggie and Letty were two Chicana girls, they loved 70s glam-rock and metal, which was totally uncool in their context. It was their secret thing. This is a great, hard-rocking, silly song from the early '70s.
• "Metal Guru" by T-Rex. Another fave of Maggie and Letty, and another great song. Again an unusual choice--T-Rex had one hit in the U.S., "Bang a Gong."
• "Deuce" by Kiss. Another that they like. (This song, by the way, sucks. Especially compared to the previous two.)
• "I Wanna Be Sedated" by the Ramones. This great punk classic represents Maggie and Letty's discovery of punk.
• "The American in Me" by the Avengers. A great punk song loved by Maggie and Letty. The Avengers were a relatively obscure (but excellent) San Francisco punk band.
• "Space Station #5" by Montrose. Maggie is surprised to discover this song on a jukebox in the small Texas border town where her relatives live. This song is a lame, formless example of why people hate so much 70s rock. But it is amazing that it would show up on a jukebox.
• "Brother Jukebox" by Mark Chestnutt. The only country song I saw. Like "Valentine," this song anchors a scene in a time and milieu. Maggie is trying to find a wrestler at a local watering hole frequented by wrestlers. This song was a brilliant choice to have playing in the background because of its lyrics give it a double-code: on one hand, it's like a lot of country songs about lonely guys who hang out in bars. But when the lyrics are written out, they seem unusually cosmic!--"Brother Jukebox, Sister Wine, Mother Freedom, Father Time."
• Amazing Three theme song. Maggie's sister is watching this on TV.
• "Teenage Kicks" by the Undertones. After Danita and Esther get married, Maggie walks down the street singing this old punk classic. It has an ironic effect, because marriage is inherently the end of "teenage kicks."

Dicks and Deedees. This is a weird book because it starts with Maggie's divorce. Who knew she was married?! Jaime very cleverly inserts a history between Maggie and Tony that goes back to their respective teenhoods. Because there are a lot of flashbacks to their youthful punk days, there are a lot of early punk songs.

• "You can Cry If You Want" by the Troggs. This is playing at Maggie and Tony's "divorce party."
• "No God" by the Germs.
• "Blues" by the Chiefs.
• "Dead at Birth" by the Subhumans. Three punk songs by L.A. bands from the early 80s--they give the flashbacks a time and place.

Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories is the big Gilbert Hernandez book set in the Central American town

• "Holidays in the Sun" by the Sex Pistols. This is the title of a story set in the grim prison where Jesus was sent for the crime of assaulting his wife. The title of the song is bitterly ironic, and that irony is carried over to Gilbert's story. The title also refers back to the story in which Jesus commits the crime, called "The Laughing Sun."
• "All Tomorrow's Parties" by the Velvet Underground. Israel goes to a weird, decadent party where this song is playing in the background, appropriately enough.
• "Rock You Like a Hurricane" by the Scorpions. This is the song prefered by heavy metal fan Gerry. And a great song it is. This is the thesis.
• "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies. Another great song, prefered by punk fan Steve. This is the antithesis.
• "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead. The synthesis--this is a song both Steve and Gerry can love.
• "Burnin Love" by Elvis. When Luba is in a great mood, she dances and sings this song.

Love & Rockets: Volume 10: X--this is Gilbert's first big story set in the U.S.A. Since it deals in part with a band called "Love & Rockets" (not the well-known English band), there is a lot of music quoted. Generally speaking, the music is current or the kind of music the characters would like. But Gilbert can't resist using the music to comment on the events, whether ironically or even directly.

• "7 & 7 Is" by Love. Steve is singing this classic 60s garage tune as he skateboards, reflecting excellent tastes way beyond what you would expect (he is a sympathetic but outstandingly stupid character).
• "Love Me Like a Reptile" by Motorhead. Another song sung by Steve.
• "Immigrant Song" by Led Zep. Gerry's car radio is playing this seconds before they pick up Riri, an actual illegal immigrant.
• "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" by Public Enemy. Gilbert introduces some young black characters, and Erf'quake is listening to this tune.
• "Funky Stuff" by Cool and the Gang. Riri and Maricela have this playing as they have a romantic interlude.
• "Lethal Weapon" by Ice-T. This hard-ass song is playing as Erf'Quake's hat gets peed on by his infant son.
• "Miss You Much" by Janet Jackson. Riri is listening to this on her headphones. I wonder why she is always listening to English-language music? No norteno, salsa, meringue, boleros?
• "Falling" by Julie Cruise and Angelo Badalamenti. This sophisticated music is playin at Rex's mom's party. She is a Hollywood exec, and her guests are supposedly Hollywood sophisticates, but Gilbert portrays them as dishonest and fundamentally racist.
• "Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell" by Iggy Pop. Igor speculates that this kind of music can never be commercialized. Oh, how naive!
• "My Way" by Sid Vicious. Also playing in the background at the party (weirdly enough).
• "Stranded in the Jungle" by the New York Dolls (or the original do-wop version by the Cadets). This is one of the songs that Sean's cover band does.

Gilbert and Jaime have great musical tastes, but one thing that I wonder is why is there no Latin music? There are plenty of opportunities where it would make sense to have a great Mexican pop song playing. This is not a criticism, just something I noticed while compiling this list.


Gilbert Hernandez, Love & Rockets no. 6, 1984