#27. The Education of Hopey Glass (The Complete Love & Rockets, Vol. 24), by Jaime Hernandez

[whereweather.livejournal.com]

#27. The Education of Hopey Glass (The Complete Love & Rockets, Vol. 24), Jaime Hernandez

2008 (material originally published 2005-'08), Fantagraphics Books

 

Okay, here I go about Love & Rockets again.  I feel a little dumb writing in so much detail about each new volume of the series I devour (being on a ten-year catch-up binge as I am), since I'm not sure anyone else is interested.  But at the same time, it's hard for me to resist it.  Half of the books -- the ones by Jaime Hernandez, about his post-punk ambisexual working-class Latina chicks in L.A. -- I've been following for so many years and love so much that I can't help gushing on and on.  And the ones by Gilbert Hernandez, about his ever-more-convoluted Lynchian psychosexual post-magic-realism Mexican American and Central American émigrés in L.A. -- the ones who all seem to sport big breasts, huge butts, impressive penis sizes, and an increasingly complicated array of fetishes... well, those are so involuted that I can't really follow the story line unless I break it all down for myself.

 

So here we have  Volume 24, all about Maggie's best friend and one-time lover Hopey Glass.  The overarching narrativethrust comes from the fact that Hopey has a new job.  It's a real job, which is really strange for her!  As long as we've known her, Hopey was living either with or on other people; or playing bass with a band; or off a small inheritance; or, more recently, bartending and working odd jobs.  But apparently she recently took up temping, and now she has -- of all things -- studied for, taken, and passed an exam to become certified as a teaching assistant in the state of California.  It's a new school year now, and her job is about to begin.

 

Jaime has structured the story temporally, chronicling a week in Hopey's life ("Day By Day With Hopey!")  We've seen this every now and then in the past, usually for very short stories, but I think this is the first time he's done such a long story arc this way.  (It's interspersed with other short stories from other characters' points of view, as is Jaime's common practice these days.)  Also: what is really new about this story, and kind of strange to longtime readers of the series, is that Hopey is the psychological viewpoint character.  It's tricky to talk about viewpoint characters in graphic narrative, but the concept definitely exists, and from the beginning of the series Maggie has mostly been it; Hopey -- despite her prominence in the storylines, her second billing, etc. -- has long been something of a psychological cipher.  She's sortt of represented a sort of epitome of cool, of cool self-reliance, and of (a certain kind of) desirability; and partly in consequence, even when she has been an important story catalyst, she has been largely defined by other people's perceptions of her.  It's sort of seemed like... she's too cool to have an inside?  (And there's a lot about punk, about identity, about gender, about (perhaps) butchness and sexuality, and about age and ageing wrapped up in that single contradiction.)

 

But now Hopey takes center stage.  Most of the time, she's the only one in the panel.  She has insecurities; she has desires that aren't easily or immediately gratified.  She is changing.  It's a fucking hard task Jaime Hernandez has taken on, and, me being me, I applaud him for it.

 

(A further brief note about Hopey: Hopey is Latina and a native bilingual Spanish speaker, despite her Anglo name; her mother was Colombian and her father of Scottish background.  (Although, apparently, she is able to pass for white if she wishes to -- a source of occasional tension in the past.)  It has never been completely clear if her real name is Esperanza and people just call her Hopey, or if her real name is Hope and her family calls her Esperanza ("Esperanza" being the Spanish word for "Hope," and vice versa).)

 

... You know, having written out all that, I don't really feel any need to go into plot detail.  I'll just add that Jaime's _graphisme_ continues to get better (please note: it was terrific twenty years ago.  It is currently transcending "indescribably good" and moving toward "sublime"), and that this volume is almost completely focused on realistic human details (the interactions of love and fear, the operations of the environment upon memory, emotionally suggestive detail of localized domestic interiors).  It does, however, also contain its share of strippers, gangsters, titty bars, superheroes, and comic-book conventions.

 

I LOVE LOVE & ROCKETS 4EVER!  OK bye.

[Tags I wish I could add: california, superheroes, magic realism, fat.]

 

Comments

[srevans.livejournal.com]

If it helps you feel less dumb at all, I've been reading these write-ups with fascination. Next time I have any wherewithal at all I'll picking up a few.

[whereweather.livejournal.com]

hurray! it does make me feel slightly less dumb, actually. :)

[kitsuchi.livejournal.com]

and from the beginning of the series Maggie has mostly been it; Hopey -- despite her prominence in the storylines, her second billing, etc. -- has long been something of a psychological cipher.

It's interesting to hear you point that out, because when I first started reading Jaime's work, I had interpreted Hopey as the main character. Which seems weird when I think back, but I remember being surprised when the story followed Maggie and left Hopey behind. And I missed her a lot.

[whereweather.livejournal.com]

ooh, matters of viewpoint and protagonist are so complicated in graphic narrative! at the same time, i think everyone missed hopey when she and maggie separated for a while -- well, every time they separate, since they've done it more than once. hopey is absolutely essential; even when she's not on stage (maybe especially then), everyone thinks and talks about her. i see her as a catalyzing agent (usually unaware of it), and very often an object of desire (that adventure of hers on the east coast with all the fashionable dykey girls subtly battling over her was a fascinating example).

but that said, i do feel like it's only relatively recently that we have been getting a lot of story time in which it's hopey's perspective, hopey's emotional state, and hopey's uncertainties that anchor and pull the story.

i feel like i remember having read an interview with jaime somewhere, in which he talked about how -- at least early on -- hopey sort of represented that impossibly cool person, who everyone always wants to be around... but she's _impossibly_ cool, and perfect, or almost. (of course part of what's so interesting about jaime's representation of her is that it's a profoundly unusual kind of cool, and an unusual object of desire, to see represented in media. mainstream media never represents girls that way, although of course within subcultures, girls like this exist. this is part of what i think makes jaime's punk project, and just jaime generally, so awesome.)

but now the story is changing, and i like that.

annyway! where does your strangely beautiful icon come from?

[kitsuchi.livejournal.com]

Obviously I was too much in love with Hopey to notice she wasn't actually the main character ;)

Ah, I really need to go back and reread the early Love & Rockets!

The icon's from Ai Yazawa's manga Paradise Kiss. Teen love and fashion shows and modelling careers, oh my!