Love and Rockets #44, pg. 10 (1994)

Jaime Hernandez interior pages don't come much better than this page from Love and Rockets #44 that was also featured in the (Studio) Artist's Edition of his work (see attached image). I've been looking for this specific page for a while and was delighted to see it pop up for auction. Just panel after panel of masterful art and storytelling with those deep, luscious blacks Jaime’s work is celebrated for. Not a touch of whiteout or correction on the page!

Jaime was really peaking here in the Chester Square storyline, as both his writing and artistry align to produce a stunning page that begins with a dramatic confrontation and ends with a moment that will soften even the hardest of hearts — as Penny Century, neé Beatríz Garcia, reunites with her elderly mother.

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Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth discusses this page with Jaime in the Studio Edition of Jaime's work:

GROTH: Let me talk about your black-and-white patterning...Let's look at page 155 (page 10 of "It's Not That Big a Deal"), which I think displays your use of black across the page pretty beautifully. There's a lot more of it on this page than usual. This is where Penny is finally cradled in the arms of her mother. Did you know that this was going to be so predominantly black when you were beginning the page?

JAIME: It might go back to before this page, that I was thinking it's nighttime, so there's very little light, there's just concentrated light in parts of the panel. That could be it, because nighttime is fun to play with for an artist. The black at nighttime tells a lot of the story. That's why you can use as much as you want.

GROTH: Those six [final] panels are incredibly powerful--obviously, because of the content, but also because of your use of ink. It's such a somber and moving scene. And it had to have that much black on the page, I think, in order for it to have that emotional impact.

JAIME: It's the opposite of using white as a negative space. I had to learn by doing Love and Rockets how to do nighttime, because all the comics ever needed was just color. You could do nighttime and not draw any black on there, because the color would come in later and take care of that. We couldn't do that, so I had to learn a lot of tricks and see how other artists were doing it. How to make nighttime without color.