“I’m going to say this as a fan of comics and someone who respects what the artists and writers do:
I don’t get the Bros. Hernandez. I just don’t. I don’t really understand what’s happening in Love & Rockets, I didn’t really understand what I was to draw from Palomar, and in this book, though there are some very real moments, I just found it…forgettable.
Maybe a good comparison is Harvey Pekar. That guy writes about the mundane as well. Almost as though he’s intentionally trying to make things less exciting. But there’s something I GET about what he’s doing. I think, while reading Harvey Pekar, I feel the way he would intend for a reader to feel.
That’s part of the disconnect for me here. I don’t think I feel the way they were intending, or, and this is a lot to parse, I don’t feel like they have planned to try and make me feel something in particular.
I’ll probably give Love & Rockets another try just because it’s such a piece of comic book history, and I can understand that maybe there’s a cultural significance, being a white boy or growing up in a different time, that separates me from what’s being said. But honestly, I’m not a man with extendable adamantium claws or The Comedian or Guy Delisle or Chris Ware, yet those things speak to me.
I suppose that to me, Marble Season DID feel a lot like the other works by Bros. Hernandez, so if you wanted to wade in it might be a nice way to give it a shot.”