Life Drawing

By Jaime Hernandez. Published by Fantagraphics. 

Hardcover, 136 pages, B&W, 2025

Two Latinas, separated by a generation, hinder and help each other find their place in a world they never made.

Ten years in the making (and torn from the pages of the legendary Love and Rockets), Jaime Hernandez's newest graphic novel skillfully weaves two generations of his beloved characters into a satisfying story of love—both young and middle-aged. Life Drawing darts primarily between the youthful Tonta and the venerable Maggie. Tonta has a crush on her art teacher, Ray, as well as an axe to grind with an older woman in the neighborhood. When Tonta finds that the woman, Maggie, is married to Ray, things get complicated. And Tonta does not handle complications well.

Life Drawing showcases Hernandez's brilliant talent for character, weaving relationships, rejections, infidelities, and adventures involving: Tonta's self-involved sisters Vivian, Violet, and Muñeca; her colorful pals Gomez, Judy Fair, and Brown Alice; her mother, the infamous 'Black Widow of the Valley'; and of course, the two great loves of Maggie's life, Ray and Hopey. There's also a forest spirit, two weddings, some cosplay, a little pole dancing, and page after page of breathtaking comics by the medium's most wide-eyed romantic. Did we mention the weddings?

"The exhilarating latest entry in Hernandez's sprawling 'Locas' saga meditates on old regrets and new beginnings. It's not to be missed." — Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"Love and Rockets is the rare pop cultural artifact that renders Latinas not as archetypes, but as rich and profound human beings full of messy contradiction and ambivalence." — Los Angeles Times

"The simplicity of Hernandez's page designs and the elegant economy of his drawing style belie the thoughtful sophistication of his storytelling… .[A] heartbreakingly satisfying achievement." — Booklist