Gilbert Hernandez, “Bumperhead”

Gilbert Hernandez nails his title character’s emotional essence in the very first panel ofBumperhead, the prolific cartoonist’s hormonally overdriven anatomy of adolescence. Fatefully named and thoroughly pissed off, a preadolescent Bobby Numbly stares defiantly at the reader as childish taunts ­– “There’s a bump bump bumperhead here! Thumpin’ bumpin’ bumper! El Bumpo!” – join background clouds in a perfectly weighted composition filling two-thirds of the page. His tormentors are a couple of neighborhood boys in Oxnard, California – Los Bros Hernandez’s own hometown. Read more at The Comics Journal …