Creativity Quote by Jaime Hernandez

There is a quiet defiance in the offhand way Jaime Hernandez frames his career: not as a heroic calling, but as a lived-in habit. “On the side” is doing a lot of work here. It acknowledges the pragmatic reality of making art in America (you take gigs, you diversify, you survive) while insisting that the center of gravity never moved. Comics weren’t a stepping stone to “real” art; they were the main thing, the north star, the job and the language.

The subtext is a subtle rebuke to the old cultural hierarchy that treats comics as juvenile, disposable, or merely preparatory for illustration, animation, gallery work. Hernandez flips that script with a shrug. By speaking plainly, he refuses the insecurity that often shadows comics creators when they’re asked to justify their medium. It’s not an apology or a pitch. It’s a statement of fact.

Context matters: Hernandez, as a key figure behind Love and Rockets, helped carve out a space where comics could sustain long-form character work with the emotional density of a novel and the visual economy of a song. The phrasing “my main things” is almost punk in its understatement, echoing a DIY ethic where loyalty to the form is as important as mastery. He’s telling you that the point was never to escape comics. The point was to build a life inside them.