Cynthia Walker

Cynthia Walker is a supporting character in Gilbert Hernandez's slice-of-life anthology Love and Rockets, inhabiting the richly drawn human world alongside characters like Rex Walker and Steve Stranski in stories exploring everyday life and relationships.

Born into the rich, sprawling world of Gilbert Hernandez's Love and Rockets, Cynthia Walker made her debut in 1990 — right at the cusp of comics' Modern Age — under the Fantagraphics banner that helped define alternative comics as a serious literary form. She moves through a world populated by the likes of Rex Walker, Steve Stranski, Sean Ogata, and the Rio brothers, the layered, deeply human cast that makes Love and Rockets one of the most celebrated ongoing series in the medium. Though her appearances in the catalog are select rather than sprawling, the fact that Hernandez has returned to her across more than three decades speaks to the quiet gravitational pull his characters tend to have. For readers who love comics that treat their characters as real people worth revisiting, Cynthia Walker is exactly the kind of figure worth seeking out.