An Oldie but a Goodie: An Essay on Gilbert Hernandez's Picto-biography of Frida Kahlo

Hit the image for the rest of the essay...

An Artist Who Channels Jaime Hernandez and Harper Lee

I guest lectured on Gilbert and Jaime (and a little on Mario) Hernandez in an introduction to literature class taught by Jenni Minniti-Shippey, the excellent managing editor @ Poetry International. One of her students, Norma Mejia, did an oil painting that fused lecture materials on Jaime's remarkable "How to Kill a... by Isabel Reubens" short story with Harper Lee's How to Kill a Mockingbird.  Very cool:

Gilbert Hernandez via MTV's BLOGAMOLE

First, a video:


.... and here's the full posting; gracias to Daniela Capistrano for the linklove!

Special IMAGE-TEXT Issue on Los Brothers Hernandez!

Hit the image above for the details! Or, hit the jpg here to your left

Gilbert Hernandez and the Modern Novel

Repost from November 30, 2007

There is not enough to be said of our late 20th Century and early 21st Century Chicano Dickens, the one and only Gilbert Hernandez. Serializing stories that span the Americas from Agoura, Califas to Central America, from Las Vegas to outer space, Hernandez's savvy pen and inks transformed graphic narrative in the United States. He is one of a generation of india ink American seers like Art Spiegelman, Dan Clowes, and Robert Crumb, with graphic visions that reveal vividand luridtales of America North, South, and Central with a line as sure as Dan DeCarlo's and a narrative savvy like Pynchon channeling García Márquez through Frida Kahlo's paintbrush (with Buñuel capturing it all on his instamatic).

All these plaudits, then, as a prelude to an excellent interview from last April with Gilbert Hernandez at The Daily Cross Hatch.

In Tex[t]-Mex, Hernandez cameos as my avatar of cultural osmosis, the epitome of Xicanosmosis--he is that and more. Check out his wares here.

You'll be glad you did!



update, November 30, 2009

One of Hernandez's all-time hottest short piece is his illustrated biography of Frida Kahlo; I have a chapter on this piece in Tex[t]-Mex that originally appeared as an essay in NYU Press's Latino Studies collection. A stunning nude of Kahlo by Julien Levy has recently been making the rounds online via Tumblr--Kahlo's expression in the image is striking.

Luba as Wonder Woman

Just a quick flash of Gilbert Hernandez's genius--a depiction of Luba as Wonder Woman; part of a project you can see here.

MLA Bound: Gilbert Hernandez, Birdland, and More!

More soon. Here's a cool interview with Gilbert Hernandez.

Comic-Con, San Diego, Pablo Jaime Sáinz, and Latinos in Graphic Narrative

Just getting around to scanning a nice piece on Latinas/os in the world of comic books that Pablo Jaime Sáinz had in Enlace, the Spanish-language version of the Union-Tribune newspaper here in San Diego around this time last year; the piece is in Spanish and features great graphics and writing!


Blogger saved the image smaller, so here is more readable copy:

XicanOsmosis, Gilbert Hernandez and Frida Kahlo

UPDATED: original post, October 23, 2007

One of my favorite chapters to write in Tex[t]-Mex has gotten short shrift in this Galleryblog, Chapter Five, "XicanOsmosis: Frida Kahlo and Mexico in the Eyes of Gilbert Hernandez." This is the place in the book where the focus zoom out OFF of the pathologically mangled figuration of "Mexicans" by U.S. mass culture ONTO Latino 'self' figuration--here, a Chicano illustrator and writer, Gilbert Hernandez conjuring an illustrated biography of Frida.

The original version of this chapter was published by New York University Press in Michelle Habel-Pallan's and Mary Romero's Latino/a Popular Culture. A massive pdf of the original essay, revised and extended for the UT Press book, appears here.

I recently ran across the cool compilation of newsreel and home videos of Kahlo, with Diego as well in some shots (the cad!), and thought I would share them here:



Here, as well, are three illustrated pages from the NYUPress edition of the essay:













POSTSCRIPT

I have not always been kind in these pages to Kahlo biopic that Salma Hayek starred in, based largely on the noteworthy if too earnest Hayden Herrera biography of Frida Kahlo--Diego's Movidas is my alternative title for the movie. But critics can change their tune when they get fish-slapped in the face with new evidence. With that, a behind-the-scenes video on the music in Kahlo that has me rethinking elements of my reading of Julie Taymor's film: