Gilbert Hernandez

Gilbert Hernandez appears in Love and Rockets as a fictionalized, self-insert version of the cartoonist himself — the real-life co-creator stepping into his own pages as a minor character within the same universe as Luba and the Palomar cast.

There's something wonderfully meta about finding Gilbert Hernandez himself catalogued among the characters of Love and Rockets — the cartoonist as a figure within the very pages he helped make legendary. Debuting in 1983 during the Bronze Age, this Fantagraphics gem spans nearly four decades of appearances alongside the likes of Luba, Maricela, and Ofelia Beltran, the beloved inhabitants of his richly imagined worlds. With 14 catalog appearances across Love and Rockets, Heartbreak Soup and Other Stories, and Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy, Gilbert-as-character is a rare, playful footnote to one of alternative comics' most celebrated bodies of work. For collectors who love the art of comics as much as the stories themselves, that self-referential presence carries a charm all its own.