Department of English

This One Series course explores Love and Rockets, an anthology comic book series created by the collective known as Los Bros Hernandez and published continuously since 1978. We will approach the series through the lenses of Comics Studies and Latinx Studies. Is it true, as one scholar says, that, “Love and Rockets is the closest thing we have to ‘The Great American Comic Book?’” How does the series continue or challenge the legacy of the underground comix movement of the 1960s and 1970s? We will consider how Love and Rockets incorporates elements of the anarchist LA punk scene, challenges notions of Latinidad, and expands the visual vernacular of gender & sexuality in American comics. Alongside two representative volumes from Love and Rockets, we will read criticism, watch documentaries, incorporate our own comics research, and write comics of our own. Assignments will include brief research exercises and short writing in various forms. For the final projects, students will have the choice of a critical essay or creative project. Students will come away from the class with increased visual literacy as well as a basic theoretical framework for ethnic studies writ large.