I found a lot of food for thought in an interview with the Hernandez Brothers, Jaime and Gilbert, regarding their most popular comic creation, "Love and Rockets." I never knew that it was their mother, a rabid comic book reader, that instilled in them a love for comics. So often, comics readers are referred to as one homogenous group: "teenage boys." Although the bulk of readers may fall into this category, I wish there was more recognition of female readers of various ethnicities, sexual preferences, and age groups.
The brothers amusingly discuss the difficulties they encountered when they began to draw women--how they initially misunderstood female bodily proportions relative to male figures. Eventually, they came to love drawing women and discuss how their own desires and the women in their lives--relatives, mostly--have affected the way they represent female characters.
Gilbert also talks about what it was like for them to be Chicanos involved in L.A.'s punk culture--which I loved because I was going to clubs in L.A. at that time and listening to Chicano punk bands like the Plugz and the Brat and it was cool to hear about it from another perspective. Jaime also surprised me by remarking about his popular "Love and Rockets" character Hopey, "It's hard to imagine a sexier character than a 21-year-old punk rock chick." I'm not going to argue with that.