Maya

Emerging from the richly populated world of Gilbert Hernandez's Love and Rockets in 1989, Maya is one of the quietly compelling figures who populate the Copper Age's most celebrated alternative comics universe. Published by Fantagraphics across a decade, she moves through stories alongside an extraordinary ensemble — Luba, Maggie Chascarillo, Ray Dominguez, Maricela, and Penny Century — the kind of vivid, complex company that makes Hernandez's corner of indie comics feel like a living, breathing community. With a key issue to her name and appearances spread across Love and Rockets, Penny Century, and the retrospective Ten Years of Love and Rockets, Maya is one of those characters who rewards the devoted reader willing to dig into one of alternative comics' most rewarding bodies of work.