The Love Bunglers
Jaime Hernandez
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
Featuring Jaime Hernandez's longtime Love and Rockets heroine Maggie, The Love Bunglers explores the suppression of her family history. Because these secrets can't be dealt with openly, they weigh heavily on her mind. But Maggie's ability to navigate and find meaning in her life -- despite losing her culture, her brother, her profession, and her friends -- is what's made her a compelling character. After a lifetime of losses, Maggie finds, in the second half, her longtime off-and-on lover, Ray Dominguez. In taking us through lives, deaths, and near-fatalities, The Love Bunglers encapsulates Maggie's emotional history as it moves from resignation to memories of loss, to sudden violence (a theme in this story) and eventually to love and contentment. Hernandez has been following his longtime character, Maggie, around for several decades, which lends this book a powerful emotional resonance.
Product Details
Price
$19.99
$18.59
Publisher
Fantagraphics Books
Publish Date
May 17, 2014
Pages
104
Dimensions
9.0 X 11.28 X 0.61 inches | 1.6 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781606997291
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About the Author
Jaime Hernandez was one of six siblings born and raised in Oxnard, California. His mother passed down a love of comics, which for Jaime became a passion rivaled only by his interest in the burgeoning punk rock scene of 1970s Southern California. Together with his brothers Gilbert and Mario, Jaime co-created the ongoing comic book series Love and Rockets in 1981, which Gilbert and Jaime continue to both write and draw to this day. Jaime's work began as a perfect (if unlikely) synthesis of the anarchistic, do-it-yourself aesthetic of the punk scene and an elegant cartooning style that recalled masters such as Charles M. Schulz and Alex Toth. Love and Rockets has evolved into one of the great bodies of American literary fiction, spanning five decades and countless high-water marks in the medium's history. In 2016, Hernandez won the prestigious Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his graphic novel, The Love Bunglers. In 2017, he (along with Gilbert) was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, and, in 2018, he released his first children's book, the Aesop Book Prize-winning The Dragon Slayer: Folktales from Latin America. He is a lifelong Angeleno.
Reviews
[Hernandez's] writing is as funny and candid as ever. His drawing is -- always has been -- just a dream. It seamlessly combines conventional representation and cartoony exaggeration -- often in the same panel. But it's the depth that you drown in, the sense that we are swimming in the deep waters of the heart here.--Teddy Jamieson
This book represents Jaime's best work, and is one of the best comics I've ever read.--Colleen Frakes
The most moving sequence in any book I've read this year is entirely wordless. ... As ever with Hernandez, it's funny, complex, unsettling and beautifully drawn. It's also a reminder that a graphic novel can do things that a novel told in straightforward prose simply can't.--Anna Carey
...[A]s irresistible as ever, peeling back the years to reveal a lifetime of powerful relationships, rejections, infidelities, and adventures.--Calvin Reid
Jaime Hernandez keeps hitting home runs. It's almost like he doesn't know how to stop. ... You don't have to have ever read a Hernandez Bros. story before to appreciate the achievement, but for those who have, it's impossible to reach the end without shedding serious tears. It's that good, heartbreaking, and breathtaking in even measure. It's just about perfect, and you can put that on the book flap.--Tim O'Neil
Hernandez's understated dialogue and sparse, bold lines make every panel of his recent work sing and sting, and midway he drops the floor out from beneath his readers' feet. The narrative strands of his characters' histories converge, as the grand story he's been drawing for 30 years glides to its conclusion -- the most heartbreaking ending possible that's still, technically, a happy ending.--Douglas Wolk
Since 1981, with pitch-perfect dialogue and impeccable draftsmanship, Hernandez has conveyed more entertaining (and poignant) drama than just about any contemporary filmmaker or novelist. There's a word for what this guy is doing with his life's work -- can someone give him a MacArthur grant and make it official?--R.C. Baker
I don't really understand why the material of Love and Rockets isn't widely regarded as one of the finest pieces of fiction of the last 35 years. Because it is.--Neal Gaiman
The story moves masterfully between time periods, compressing and dilating key moments so that you're never sure what's around the next panel. It packs an emotional wallop even if you're not familiar with the characters.--Jeff Jackson
All of the elements are woven together masterfully. A few chapters about the characters as kids added to the depth of the story by providing motivation for how they interacted as adults. ... Hernandez's female characters have a mix of body types that is rarely seen in comics. They're fat, thin, athletic, young, old, and everywhere in between. What's amazing is that they're drawn in a way that expresses their beauty and shows his love for them all.--Gene Ambaum
So good. ... This book hits my comic receptors like enchiladas on my plate at a family party. The writing is nuts with how effortless it tells a story. There are no exposition dumps, there are no wasted scenes, no clunky dialogue. It's amazing. And the art is perfect. ... It's a very Hispanic story told by a master Hispanic creator which informs every reason you should read this comic.--Kris Saldaña
The Love Bunglers... is one of the most entertaining and honest stories about how we go about our lives, bungling up love. ... This is storytelling and character work done so well you'll wonder if they are in fact alive and possibly right next door.--David Brooke
The culmination of an achingly long will-they/won't-they relationship between Hernandez's signature characters, Hopey and Ray, this is a perfectly drawn, decades-spanning masterpiece by comics' most unblinking and clear-eyed romantic.--Sean Rogers
This book represents Jaime's best work, and is one of the best comics I've ever read.--Colleen Frakes
The most moving sequence in any book I've read this year is entirely wordless. ... As ever with Hernandez, it's funny, complex, unsettling and beautifully drawn. It's also a reminder that a graphic novel can do things that a novel told in straightforward prose simply can't.--Anna Carey
...[A]s irresistible as ever, peeling back the years to reveal a lifetime of powerful relationships, rejections, infidelities, and adventures.--Calvin Reid
Jaime Hernandez keeps hitting home runs. It's almost like he doesn't know how to stop. ... You don't have to have ever read a Hernandez Bros. story before to appreciate the achievement, but for those who have, it's impossible to reach the end without shedding serious tears. It's that good, heartbreaking, and breathtaking in even measure. It's just about perfect, and you can put that on the book flap.--Tim O'Neil
Hernandez's understated dialogue and sparse, bold lines make every panel of his recent work sing and sting, and midway he drops the floor out from beneath his readers' feet. The narrative strands of his characters' histories converge, as the grand story he's been drawing for 30 years glides to its conclusion -- the most heartbreaking ending possible that's still, technically, a happy ending.--Douglas Wolk
Since 1981, with pitch-perfect dialogue and impeccable draftsmanship, Hernandez has conveyed more entertaining (and poignant) drama than just about any contemporary filmmaker or novelist. There's a word for what this guy is doing with his life's work -- can someone give him a MacArthur grant and make it official?--R.C. Baker
I don't really understand why the material of Love and Rockets isn't widely regarded as one of the finest pieces of fiction of the last 35 years. Because it is.--Neal Gaiman
The story moves masterfully between time periods, compressing and dilating key moments so that you're never sure what's around the next panel. It packs an emotional wallop even if you're not familiar with the characters.--Jeff Jackson
All of the elements are woven together masterfully. A few chapters about the characters as kids added to the depth of the story by providing motivation for how they interacted as adults. ... Hernandez's female characters have a mix of body types that is rarely seen in comics. They're fat, thin, athletic, young, old, and everywhere in between. What's amazing is that they're drawn in a way that expresses their beauty and shows his love for them all.--Gene Ambaum
So good. ... This book hits my comic receptors like enchiladas on my plate at a family party. The writing is nuts with how effortless it tells a story. There are no exposition dumps, there are no wasted scenes, no clunky dialogue. It's amazing. And the art is perfect. ... It's a very Hispanic story told by a master Hispanic creator which informs every reason you should read this comic.--Kris Saldaña
The Love Bunglers... is one of the most entertaining and honest stories about how we go about our lives, bungling up love. ... This is storytelling and character work done so well you'll wonder if they are in fact alive and possibly right next door.--David Brooke
The culmination of an achingly long will-they/won't-they relationship between Hernandez's signature characters, Hopey and Ray, this is a perfectly drawn, decades-spanning masterpiece by comics' most unblinking and clear-eyed romantic.--Sean Rogers
