Reading skeptically, again
Yesterday’s LA Times had a nice profile of “Love and Rockets” creator Gilbert Hernandez. If you enjoy his work, as I have for a long time, you’ll want to read it. Here it is, minus a good photo of the artist look surprisingly urbane in a book-lined study. (I guess there is still a reason to look at the print edition of the Times: to see the photos they don’t put on the web.)
Scott Timberg, the writer of the piece, makes a strained comparison between the Hernandez brothers (Gilbert and Jaime) and Lennon and McCartney. In each case, two men were involved; I think the comparison ends about there. We know the story of Lennon and McCartney well enough, so there’s no need to rehash that here, but let’s note at the outset that the two men worked together. I don’t recall Gilbert and Jaime ever doing a piece together — what they did were two separate strips that were published together in the same title. Even if John and Paul had taken the same route — and they came close, with the white album and “Abbey Road” — they at least played on each other’s songs. I’ve met Scott Timberg once or twice and seem to recall his having a Beatles fascination, so I can only assume that’s the origin of this pointless comparison. Pointless because the Hernandez brothers haven’t even broken up — they were solo artists and they remain solo artists. Pointless because I can’t find any way in which Jaime is “the McCartney” and Gilbert “the Lennon.”
Just because someone puts something into print doesn’t make it true. It also doesn’t mean there’s any wisdom in the metaphor.