{"id":92396,"date":"2025-07-25T21:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T21:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/92396\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T21:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T21:31:10","slug":"catching-up-with-love-rockets-jaime-hernandez-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/92396\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching up with \u2018Love & Rockets\u2019 Jaime Hernandez \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Diego Comic-Con<\/a> kicked\u00a0off this week, but on Thursday, I was still at home getting ready to walk the dog.<\/p>\n

I pulled out a random T-shirt from the drawer and came up with a favorite: my \u201cLove & Rockets\u201d tee from Fantagraphics<\/a>, featuring a Jaime Hernandez image from issue #24. It seemed appropriate for the day.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO<\/strong>:\u00a0Like books? Get our free Book Pages newsletter about bestsellers, authors and more<\/a><\/p>\n

\""Love\u201cLove and Rockets\u201d image. (Courtesy of Artbound \/ Fantagraphics)<\/p>\n

During my twice-daily dog walks, I\u00a0smile, nod and catch up with neighbors and fellow dog walkers, and even though my pup is a sweet, friendly doofus, I step aside and let people pass so they can see clearly that this butt-wiggling burst of fur is a good citizen and not a threat.<\/p>\n

At one point, I paused to detangle her leash as\u00a0a man in dark glasses and a straw hat came striding our way. Leaning over to adjust her collar,\u00a0I smiled and nodded a quick\u00a0hello that landed somewhere around\u00a0his kneecaps.<\/p>\n

I almost didn\u2019t hear him speak as he passed by.<\/p>\n

Nice shirt, he said.<\/p>\n

We continued on our way, but I kept thinking about\u00a0how he said those two words \u2013 \u201cNice shirt\u201d \u2013 as we\u00a0turned a corner and went down another block. It wasn\u2019t snide or rude, but kind of wry, almost like an inside joke.<\/p>\n

And then I realized it was an inside joke.<\/p>\n

I pulled out my phone, typed in a search and there he was: Jaime Hernandez, the \u201cLove & Rockets\u201d co-creator and artist who\u2019d drawn the very image I was wearing. I\u2019d briefly met him and his co-creator brother Gilbert in the swirl of humanity at Comic-Con once, and I\u2019d interviewed the filmmaker behind the PBS documentary about the Hernandez brothers\u2019 40+ year career<\/a>\u00a0a few years back. And my colleague Peter Larsen had a great talk with them<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s a nice shirt, indeed.<\/p>\n

Readers and friends, I resisted the urge to chase after him or retrace my steps because I am a grown-up and don\u2019t do that stuff and running is hard. However, I am also a regular walker of my neighborhood, and so I had a pretty good sense that we might pass each other on the way back.<\/p>\n

But block after block as I headed home, we didn\u2019t cross paths\u00a0again.<\/p>\n

Until finally we\u00a0did.<\/p>\n

Hernandez was peering into the same Little Free Library I always do.\u00a0(Note: I peer into ALL the Little Free Libraries.)\u00a0This time we were both in on the joke.<\/p>\n

Hi, again, I said. This is your work I\u2019m wearing, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Yeah, Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

This probably happens to you all the time, I said.<\/p>\n

No, he said. It doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

So do you live around here, I asked.<\/p>\n

[Gesturing vaguely in\u00a0the least definitive direction possible] Yes.<\/p>\n

Since he\u2019d published a new Fantagraphics\u00a0 book, \u201cLife Drawings: A Love & Rockets Collection,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year,\u00a0I asked if he\u2019d be attending Comic-Con. Hernandez said he would be there on Friday, today, when he\u2019s doing a signing at the Fantagraphics booth<\/a> and participating in a 4:30 p.m. panel about his work in Room 26AB: A Life Drawing: Jaime Hernandez in Conversation with Gary Groth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We only talked\u00a0a minute or two, as I aimed to be mindful that this might be (and probably already was) strange or uncomfortable for him.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a weirdo, just a journalist, I said in a reassuring manner, though I realized both could be true.<\/p>\n

As if to prove\u00a0this, I escalated things to a Larry David-level of awkwardness by asking if he\u2019d be willing to take a photo. I didn\u2019t think this odd coincidence would be believable otherwise. He\u00a0agreed.<\/p>\n

\"ErikErik Pedersen, wearing a Love & Rockets T-shirt, ran into Jaime Hernandez, the \u201cLove & Rockets\u201d creator and artist, while taking a morning walk in Pasadena. (Photo by Erik Pedersen)<\/p>\n

Photo taken, I wished him well as we went our separate ways, and about a block from home, I stepped aside for another\u00a0dog walker who nodded and smiled.<\/p>\n

Nice shirt,\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n

And you know, it really is.<\/p>\n

For more Love & Rockets, check out the Fantagraphics website, and for a look at 2025 San Diego Comic-Con, check out our coverage.<\/a><\/p>\n

Originally Published: July 25, 2025 at 1:11 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Comic-Con kicked\u00a0off this week, but on Thursday, I was still at home getting ready to walk…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":92397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1022,1582,276,15661,3549,7264,1071,1072,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-92396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-comic-con","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-the-book-pages","16":"tag-things-to-do","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114916012049797533","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}