I know how it sounds. I sound like a whining wannabe
who’s fishing for the pity of others. I sound like someone who spends more time
trying to convince others that my fandom is real, that I am the actual number
one Gilbert Hernandez fan. Despite having only discovered the Beto’s work, and
the work of Los Bros Hernandez, specifically Love & Rockets, sometimes in 2008, I’m their biggest fan and
you’ve got to believe me because I’ve real, not all, but most of their comics
on several occasions and… well, you get my point. In the grand scheme of things,
I feel rather unimportant but I really don’t think Beto would mind. Sure, I
most likely can’t write a verbose and in depth appreciation of Marble Season to rival the afterword of
academic Cory Kreekmur, which can be found at the back of the book but that’s
ok, right? Just like Gilbert shows us there is more than one way to appreciate
a comic, you can be like Gilbert’s stand-in, Huey, and read comics and analyse
muscleman adds or you can be like little Chavo and enjoy tearing them up
instead, there is more than one way to enjoy, appreciate and recommend Marble Season. The real important thing
is that despite my limitations as a writer, I’m trying.
Enough about me, let’s talk about Marble Season. Gilbert Hernandez, my favourite of the Hernandez
brothers (which isn’t saying much, they’re all masterful in their own right),
has always excelled at writing convincing child characters in his Love & Rockets series. One of my
all-time favourites is Guadalupe. I remember how I felt the first time I ever
read “Heartbreak Soup”. I haven’t taken the time to count, but in that one
story alone, Gilbert created nearly fifty characters and that’s not
exaggeration. Out of all of them, Guadalupe was instantly my favourite. Her
antics with all the other children in the fictional village of Palomar were an
absolute delight. The nicest thing I can say about Marble Season is that it’s all child cast reminded me of the
children of Palomar in “Heartbreak Soup” which is still one of Gilbert’s best
known stories.
The story of Marble
Season is rather simple, perhaps deceptively so. It’s about the day to day
lives of Huey, his brothers and his friends. There isn’t much of a plot. The comic
is episodic in nature which is apt since Gilbert’s is greatly influenced by the
child centric comics and news strips of old such as Little Archie Comics, Little
Lulu and Peanuts. Somehow the
episodic nature that seems to contradict the publication format of a graphic
novel is a very powerful tool in Gilbert’s hands. The themes are meaningful of complex
for a work that, at first glance, appears to be slight. Long-time fans of the
Hernandez Brothers won’t be fooled. The nearly completely silent pages that
pepper the comic are an exercise in subtlety and are key for adding emotional
depth to this story about the lives of children.
Consider one such page where little Chavo, Huey’s little
brother, is walking outside quite content taking a stroll outside under the
summer sun. He encounters something in the road. It’s a dead baby bird. Chavo
is completely traumatized as to how the baby bird ended up in such a state. He
continues on in with his stroll but his facial expression TRAHI the burdened
mind of a young boy who has lost a bit of his innocence. The page is told
entirely without text but it’s powerful. Perhaps little Chavo, despite his lack
of speech, is aware of everything that is going on. Gilbert uses him to great effect
in Marble Season. Chavo is the secret
observer in the neighbourhood. That’s probably why he wanders off so much. He’s
curious as to the affairs of the older kids. His bald, round head gives him the
allure of a Latin American Charlie Brown which fools the reader into thinking
this little child is as emotional troubled as Charles Shultz semi-biographic character. That’s not the case for Chavo though. On many
occasions while reading Marble Season,
I thought he was the only character to fully understand what was going on in
the lives of the neighbourhood kids. As I said before, despite the simple
nature of this book, there are a lot of things that happen or, more accurately,
suggestions are made about things that will happen.
The vague yet marvellously descriptive title perfectly
describes that period of every child’s life where they begin to understand the
worlds of adults. The book is about growing pains as it is about anything else.
A tomboy deciding to wear a dress in order to catch the attention of a boy, a
boy more concerned who perhaps chooses to pursue the affections of a Latin
American girl after being mocked by his friends for demonstrating feelings for
a little white girl with freckles, another boy who is still as of yet
unconcerned with the opposite sex, learns an important lesson about honesty,
material desires and thievery. Marble Season perfectly describes that time in
our lives where playing with your favourite childhood toy and being trouble by
one of the mysteries of life happen in the same day, sometimes simultaneously.
The Marble Season is the time in which you enjoy playing with your G.I. Joe all
the while being embarrassed about what people think of you for playing with
your G.I. Joe. Huey is encouraged to play with his G.I. Joe in ways he’d never
done before in order to avoid such embarrassment during the course of the
book. Real boys are rough with their
G.I. Joes, they toss them at the wall and throw them in the mud, and they
shouldn’t be preoccupied with their toys getting hurt or other girly nonsense.
Marble Season, among other things, is the twilight years of a child.
I could go on. There is a lot to consider in the
relatively short 120 pages. I mentioned earlier that Gilbert is my favourite of
the Hernandez Brothers but I didn’t say why. Gilbert is sneakily subtle in his
writing and in his art. His art is simple but it can be full of energy and
emotion. Gilbert carves his characters in the page. It’s harsh and beautiful at
the same time and I adore it. His writing is the same. It’s straightforward but
deceptively so. His writing will reward those who take their time. Linger on
the quieter panels and pages. Take the time to flip back and forth and really
see what’s going on. I described Marble
Season as being episodic and it is, but all that really means is that
Gilbert gives us little snippets of story that build on one another and weave
together to form a tapestry. You can easily appreciate each little snippet on
it’s on but it’s only once you stop and consider the whole that you think to
yourself “I see what you did there, Beto. Well done!”
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