Gilbert Hernandez, co-creator of Love & Rockets and one of the best American cartoonists — not to mention storytellers — working today, is back with a new book, Bumperhead, a companion to Marble Season. Hernandez’s latest follows a young, slightly bumpy-headed Bobby through childhood, then into his teen years, his experiments with different subcultures, music, drugs, women, and friendships, his grown-up disaffected ponderings, all the way to old age. The book’s storytelling style is frantic, with episodes lasting only a few pages before moving on to something else, no transition — which is somehow exactly fitting. It reads like how memory feels: you get it in snatches, in patterns, in moments of glory or pain. Except Hernandez’s vision is in rather better focus. Bumperhead hits shelves September 16. Check out an exclusive excerpt after the jump.
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly
From Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez; Image credit: Drawn & Quarterly