Dibujo del natural

by Jaime Hernández

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 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?

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

148 pages, Paperback

Published March 20, 2025

About the author

Jaime and his brother Gilbert Hernández mostly publish their separate storylines together in Love And Rockets and are often referred to as 'Los Bros Hernandez'.

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've actually read all these stories before, spread out over nearly ten years across fourteen issues of the (ir)regular Love and Rockets series. Frankly, these tiny vignettes didn't make much sense then, but Jaime Hernandez's art is just irresistible, so I kept following along.

But now, gathered under one cover and read in just a couple hours, it all finally makes sense.

Maggie Chascarillo and Hopey Glass are present for the sake of longtime readers, but the majority of the book puts the spotlight on Anoush "Tonta" Agajanian, the younger sister of series regular femme fatale Vivian Solis.

Tonta -- a nickname meaning stupid, silly, or foolish in Spanish -- is a stupid, silly and foolish teenager bumbling through life in the summer after high school graduation. She's shunted around the family, living with her older sisters who treat her poorly physically and emotionally.

One of her great pleasures is attending an art class taught be Ray Dominguez, but Tonta manages to mess that up for herself too, but it does bring her life into closer contact with Maggie and puts her on the road to better days.

Hernandez makes it all a little goofy and a little sad, a little humorous and a little tragic. He even manages to throw in a couple of marriages that will be of interest to old fans like me.


FOR REFERENCE:

This Love and Rockets collection was originally serialized in Love and Rockets Vol. III [a/k/a "New Stories"], Nos. 7-8 and Love and Rockets Vol. IV, nos. 1-2 and 6-15.

Contents: Our Lady of the Assassinating Angels -- If It Ain't Fixed, Don't Break It! -- Eek! Tonta! -- Ilsa of the Islands by Tonta and Gomez -- Forest Spirits -- Billy, Be a Hero -- Frank Lopez -- 99° 36° -- Tonta -- Lifer Drawing -- Wary Mirth -- Eche Meve Dis -- Jury Doody -- Cherry Berry Richie Pip Perry Pembo -- Exactamente! (Lo Que Dijo Gordman) -- Rock Your Baby -- Tonta's Mind at 3AM -- Hi! -- Coach Tonta -- Wow! -- Maggie and Ray at 9:44PM -- Helen Heels -- Eppie Brianstone -- Wedding Walabaloo -- I Guess . . . -- Brown Alice, Alice Brown -- Locas -- It's Not All Love -- Not Today, You Don't -- Lader Daze

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first read the Tonta collection, I thought it was entertaining, but dismissed it as almost a light parody of the earlier Maggie/Hopey material. After a revisit, and this collection, what Hernandez is doing becomes more clear, and I appreciate a lot more the overall narrative.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maggie and Ray get married, Frog Mouth marries Ray's brother, and Tonta goes through the wringer several times. If you're a L&R fan, you won't want to miss it. If you're not a Love & Rockets fan, start at the beginning.

[Doug Downing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jaime's been holding together Love & Rockets Vol. IV with extremely high-quality entries, issue after issue. There's no better example than ‘Frank Lopez’, an hilarious tour-de-force in six pages, following a scrappy side character who otherwise doesn't fit into our main story. I particularly liked the initial Tonta entries in the wake of her graphic novel; it was interesting to see where things would go next—her housing situation, her friend situation, some fun with zinefests and comic cons, a disastrous family dinner…

When Maggie enters, the cast expands further. I enjoyed many of those stories but maybe, gradually, not as much. There were certain plot points that seemed forced or shoehorned, more heavy-handed as it went along. Gotta have a big ending, right? By the very end, it gets slightly confusing and downright annoying. Some big stuff happens—some of it earned, some not—but it's lacking a sense of weight and character development. (And bringing an Is This How You See Me? energy to the pacing.) Heck, Hopey makes just three modest appearances, yet her character gets possibly more updating than any other.

And Vivian… oh, Vivian. Just when we're almost seeing another side of her, as Tonta's guardian, she disappears into being just a side character again, even when she supposedly has the spotlight. But, man, there are moments: I really enjoyed Stef, the photographer—Ray's colleague and president of the Judy Fair fan club. She's a sprite, coming alive in every panel.

This is collected exactly as it was serialized, in New Stories 7 & 8 and L&R IV #1-2, 6-15. The dimensions are larger than both earlier formats. Bonus points if you can spot the story that got renamed in the TOC.

[Olivia Cranston · Rating 1 out of 5]

Girl whatever

[Anna Quilter · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOVE And ROCKETS is an astonishing independent comic and I will read anything with that brand on.
Familiar faces mixed with a new generation...I'm in-no question.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

February 2025 release of a Love and Rockets collection that Jaime Hernandez took close to ten years to complete, and it feels like a kind of possible ending that brings together several new beginnings, including two very unexpected marriages, after all these years. One purpose of this collection is to get main characters from two different generations together as friends, Tonta and Maggie. Then we have to have a meeting between Maggie and Hopey, of course.

Tonta and friends are, like most of the Love and Rockets crowd, into comics, and taking a life drawing class taught by Ray, Maggie's husband, which is how the Maggie-Tonta connection happens, in part. Life drawing is not to be snickered at by the Serious Art crowd--it's not sexual to be drawing a naked person, it's Ahhht!--but in this crowd, easy jokes are made about the process. Lust and romance abound, in true comedic fashion.

If you have been never read a Love and Rockets comics collection--usually episodic, a stitched-together slice-of-life collection, with hijinx and romance and talking smack to each other--you don't begin here, but you go back to the first volume and fall in love with this LA Latina wrestling and punk collection of friends. But if you are like me, a lifer L&R fanboy, this is necessary, sweet, melancholy. moving. What's the vibe? Great, classic art with influences ranging from Charles Schulz to Alex Toth, the pub blurb sez, but I always thought of it as eighties LA punk Archie Comix. So good, Los Bros fans!! Required! The ending will be with you forever!

[Thurston Hunger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like how Jaime likes women...well upgrade that "like" to love or really to adore.

Superbly edited, and assembled (Siempre viva Fantagraphics!). And what a title, too Toto! If you ever hear someone wondering why modern films are shot in black and white, just pray to the forest spirit that same person has no interest in comics, much less Los Bros.

Along those lines, in another world would Jaime be a top-notch hair-stylist. Tried to slow down on gulping the storyline and appreciate the lines and inking in his top-notch tonsorial work!

Besides the hairstyles of the not-so-rich and certainly infamous here, it is all so funny, so touching, so weird, so great. Yeah, I should have then and even now hooked myself up to the monthly drip IV, but these collections are extremely appreciated.

Like the artwork and characters within, these books are made to last!

[Norman Felchle · Rating 4 out of 5]

While so many comics and characters from my younger years try to either recapture or unnaturally maintain the past in some kind of cryogenic chamber…or they try to be “grown up” by turning childhood wonder into a dark , cynical , descent into nihilism. This book is a wonderful change from all that. The characters themselves are growing and aging right along with us…and new characters come along too. It’s like meeting up with old friends and family and finding out what they’ve been up to while we watch the next generation go through the things we’d gone through….but from our new vantage point. And…all delivered with flawless draftsmanship and storytelling.

[October Murilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Jaime Hernandez's work. I will always love Jaime Hernandez's work. But give me Maggie & Ray. Give me Hopey & her little kid. Give me Angel or the Frogmouth. I'd even take Judy Fair or Frank Lopez or the comic book club, for grief's sake. But two entire books of the grating, one-note Tonta are two books too many and hopes are not rising at the late-in-story introduction of her equally unbearable love interest, Brown Alice. So much time has to pass between these books that I dread wasting any future page counts to those two.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love and Rockets: Life Drawing 9798875000492 (2025)
I've loved revisiting these characters via the gorgeous hardback collections that span several years worth of comics. This volume mixes a decade of stories of the younger characters (from the Tonta stories) with some of the long term regulars like Maggie and Ray. We learn more about Tonta's dramatically dysfunctional family and catch up with several old friends, and then their tales merge into one story.

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The latest collection of the Jaime Hernandez stories from Love & Rockets. Jaime's as expert a storyteller as ever, although I fail to be remotely interested in his latest protagonist, Tonta, who just feels like a drag on the narrative, and while Maggie is slightly more tolerable, her continued lack of intestinal fortitude still frustrates.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this collection. I think I thought it would have a bit more cohesion, but that's okay. If you go in knowing that, I think you'd like it a lot. I've always been curious about Love and Rockets and probably will read more—I liked the realism here, and the character of the folks here, which often toy with being clownish in a way that makes their complexitie all the more surprising. 

[Taylor Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no better cartoonist in the world than Jaime Hernandez.

Another 5/5 outing from the master of the medium. This collects strips from volume III and IV of the ongoing Love & Rockets comics. Specifically the stories revolving around Tonta.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's just okay. If I didn't already have an attachment to the older characters from Love and Rockets comics, this would have been boring and hard to follow. I was of the same ilk of Maggie: not interested in these kids.

[Clint · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tonta meets Maggie, bringing a satisfying mix of stories focus on a new crowd of late teens and the long-familiar late middle-age crowd. Hernandez’s art is easy to take for granted at this point, but it really is a refined, expressive wonder.

“Tonta sure makes my life exciting.”

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was largely indifferent to TONTA, Jamie's last book, but bringing Maggie, Ray, and Hopey into this book definitely brought back my emotional investment. A nice look at how our lives shift, things don't always go as expected, but we remain true to ourselves throughout the journey.

[Ameda · Rating 4 out of 5]

collection of short stories
i liked it and i was invested in the characters and their dynamics w each other. also rlly loved the simplistic cartoon style. reminds me of the archie comics. extremely decent.

[Raven Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bizarre book. Inspired by the Punk Scene things are outrageously honoring it. Love it or hate it, you will have an experience.  Mature and adult themes include (not limited to) sexual situations, nudity, misogynistic conversations, alcohol use, abuse, language, and more.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely to catch up with the latest from these people the author has been chronicling for years. They were young when I was, and now we are growing old together. I'd say they were like distant cousins, but I probably know more about these characters than my own cousins!

[Neil Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The latest major work by Jaime Hernandez looking at everyday quotidian life*


*(Uh, aside from the bit with the misanthropic hottie with designs on being a forest spirit)

[Jason Ragle · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the world’s best cartoonists, no doubt.

[Chad Cunningham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love and Rockets is the best comic ever. And there ain't nothing you can do to convince me otherwise.

This is the latest collection of Jaime's work- and it's wonderful. Loved every second of it.

[Grg · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It's Tonta... you never know which brain that girl's gonna wear... "

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven’t checked in with the characters from Jaime Hernandez’s world in a while and was thrilled to learn that they’re aging totally realistically, and that I’m in fact still Hopey.

[Jeffrey Greening · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea graphic novel wise .