Arts & Culture
In Garden of the Flesh, A Master Cartoonist Crafts A Blasphemous Delight
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Gilbert Hernandez is an unparalleled figure in American comics. Working tirelessly since 1979, “Beto” is one of the key artists in the first wave of alternative comics, creating with his brother Jaime, a significant cartoonist in his own right, the legendary magazine Love and Rockets, a pioneering work of comics-as-literature. Gilbert’s stories in Love and Rockets, the Palomar cycle, form perhaps the greatest work of magical realism in the comics form; challenging, moving storytelling. However, the reaches of Gilbert Hernandez do not end here. The man’s output is simply insane, ranging from quiet childhood memoirs to exploitation-style pulp, all executed to maddening perfection.