Los Bros Hernandez duet, with kissing

JH:I hope so. I'm not trying to cheat, to make them stay young forever. Of course, sometimes I'd love to draw them as young as hell, with no wrinkles and stuff. But I understand that they have to move on. Maggie's aging more than Hopey, I have to admit. I have to work on Hopey, because she's been 21 for a long time. I'm taking care of that. I don't like it, I have to admit. I don't like it anymore than they do. But I'm trying. I'm trying to stay real here.

Gilbert, what do you see as the challenges of drawing middle-aged women?

GH:I based them on people I see -- my mother, my sisters, the neighborhood women. They didn't seem less vital in their 40s and 50s than they did in their 20s. And in our family, we are lucky enough to have people grow very old. It's normal for people to hit their 90s and still be running around, or at least hobbling around.

You don't automatically associate L.A. Latino culture with punk rock. Did you ever get criticism for not being "Mexican" enough?

JH:It's more common now, but then, Mexicans were not rock 'n' rollers. They liked soul or funk. It's kinda like the comic book thing. We kept the rock and roll thing to ourselves, because all of us brothers were into it. So we had a rock 'n' roll support group at home. But when we went out, there were a lot of things we couldn't talk about, because they would think we were weird, or they would say, you listen to "that white-boy music."

Do you feel pressure from the Mexican-American community to be the voice for Chicano culture?

JH:When we got into the comic world, it was almost zero Latin. We were in this world with almost all white people. In the beginning, people were afraid of us, because they thought we were hoods. How racist is that?

But people supported us. I like to think that we speak a universal language in the comic. So even though these people are Mexican, you can still relate to them as people, which was our main objective. I want people in China to like our stuff.

GH:People will say, 'Why aren't you at the forefront of the Cause?' We say, well, we're not selling anything. We're presenting Hispanics in the most, let's say realistic and sympathetic light we possibly can, even though many of the characters are flawed.

Which is of course what makes them so compelling.

GH:Well for writers and filmmakers, the more ethnic it is, the more universal it is. The more Swedish a film is, the more we like it, the more we understand it. It's when they try to water it down, and try to second-guess the foreign audience that you run into trouble.

Even Spike Lee -- the more black his films are, the more universal they are. The whiter the Beach Boys are, the better they are. I know a lot of people don't like the Beach Boys because they say they are too white. I say, that's what's good about them. That's one of the main ingredients. Joni Mitchell, the Beach Boys, Buddy Holly are really great artists because they are as white as they can get. This is going to sound weird: White people, black people, Hispanic people, people of color -- I sound like MTV.

What do you think of the mainstreaming of Latino culture 20 years after you broke into pop culture as Latino artists?

GH: Well, the question I usually get is, 'What do you think of the romantic and sexual stereotype of the sexy Latin?' Obviously, Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez are sexual icons now. That's one myth that's never bothered me. If they want to have some cartoon myth about the Latin lover, I'm OK with it. I don't think: 'People are calling me a sexy creature! I don't want that! I want to be an intellectual bore!' You can be sexy and intellectual at the same time. I've known that since I was a kid.

So as far as those folks making it in the mainstream, I'm all for it. I mean, Jennifer Lopez -- yeesh! Wotta bod. And she's also changing, at least in a slight sense, the way that people are looking at female bodies. I mean, she still has an idealized body, but we're talking about a little heft and girth now, which has been missing in the last 20 years.

Which is something you guys have always done beautifully.

GH: Because that was reality. You ask guys now about Jennifer Lopez, and they will say, 'We always liked girls like that.' It's just nobody listened to us. They were just listening to fashion magazines.

I have women friends who have beautiful bodies, and they are always worried that they are too hippy, or their legs are too much. I always say, 'Look at the two most famous pin-up icons of all time: Marilyn Monroe and Bettie Page.'

Luba is obviously an exaggeration of the whole thing, but at the same time the challenge for me is to humanize her. I can draw her as insanely exaggerated as I want, but as long as I make her a human being, as long as gravity does take effect, and social and cultural pressures are still around, it makes the character pretty interesting.

Next Page: She feels like a failure, even though she's very intelligent and very talented

• View blog reactions