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Have you ever gotten the feeling that you’ve read the perfect comic, devoured the perfect novel or watched the perfect movie?  That after you were done taking it in, you never needed to see another comic, book or movie ever again or, at least, it was so good that it made you re-evaluate what you had been considering good.  That’s the experience I had after reading Jaime Hernadez’s latest Love & Rockets collection The Education of Hopey Glass.

There are actually 2 or 3 different stories going on in this book.  The first third of it focuses on Hopey Glass as she finds herself at a crossroads in her life.  On the verge of becoming a teacher’s assistant, the reckless and adventurous Hopey is faced with the prospect of actually growing up a bit and maturing.  This is my really first exposure to Hopey even though she’s been a staple of Love and Rockets for well over two decades now.  For some reason, I never quite grasped what any of the Hernandez brothers were doing in the book until recently when I finally sat down to read Gilbert’s Palomar and loved it but I still haven’t read Locas, which focuses on the on again/off again lovers Maggie and Hopey.  I don’t know the history of these characters but Jaime removes those obstacles by excellently focusing on the characters in the here and now, defining where they are personally while hinting at just enough of the past to fill in a reader’s gaps of knowledge.

Hopey’s story covers the week that she leaves one job and begins the next.  In this story, she says good bye to her old life, to her co-workers and even parts of her past.  Leaving a company is almost a natural thing as Hopey’s co-workers take her out to lunch and give her a going away gift.  It’s a normal everyday occurence.  The shift in her future doesn’t hit Hopey until a day or two later, she tries to get into a show through the backstage door.  With the confidence she has as she walks around the building, you can tell she’s successfully done this before even if it may have been a while ago.  It’s a vicious little sting though when the bouncer doesn’t let her through the door while he lets someone obviously younger and blonder pass through with no problems.  We are all not as young as we once were.

Growing up and changes are the re-occurring theme of this book.  It’s at the forefront of Hopey’s story but we also see it in the rest of the book where the focus shifts to Ray, an older guy who finds that he has an opportunity to get together with Vivian, a girl from his past.  Where Hopey is at the crossroads, Ray is probably well past the crossroads, already moved into the realm of responsibility and age who’s given the chance to try and recapture his youth.  The connection to Hopey’s story is in the character Angela, an athletic college girl who befriends Maggie, an important person in both Hopey & Ray’s life.  Where Hopey and Ray are dealing with getting or being older, here’s a young girl just able to live and enjoy life.

Hernandez’s storytelling is cool and easy as his characters bounce from situation to situation with a normalcy about them.  Hernandez is perfect at capturing just the right moment within the borders of a panel.  Whether it’s while watching the relationship of Hopey and girlfriend Rosie slowly crumbling apart while neither wants to try and save it or Ray and Vivian sitting on the steps to her apartment, Jaime Hernandez is able to give each image, panel and page a real and heartfelt emotion though the simplest of drawings.

The Education of Hopey Glass

Written and Drawn by: Jaime Hernandez

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