Gilberto Hernández (born February 1, 1957),[1] usually credited as Gilbert Hernandez and also by the nickname Beto (Spanish: [ˈbeto]), is an American cartoonist.

He set his passions on becoming a graphic storyteller, learning everything he could by studying what he found in comics, while developing his drawing skills through constant practice.

Hernandez found high school boring, sympathizing neither with the jock nor the nerd crowds, and called himself and his brothers "just regular rock 'n' roll guys", and would make his way to Los Angeles for excitement.

[14] In 1981, Hernandez and his brothers Jaime and Mario published the first issue of Love and Rockets, which was quickly picked up by Fantagraphics Books, who republished the earliest materials in a new series starting in 1982.

[17] These stories take place in the fictional rural Latin American village of Palomar, where modern technology and rampant consumerism have yet to reach[17]—or even phone lines.

The wearying pace at which he needed to work on the series, combined with a lack of reader interest, led to its cancellation after nine issues[20] In 2001, Love and Rockets returned with a second volume, published roughly quarterly.

For his longer stories, he also began creating stand-alone graphic novels, such as Sloth (2006), about a teenager from a small town who wills himself into a coma.

[25] He also said he drew a large influence from humorously exaggerated, naturalistic artists such as Dan DeCarlo, Harry Lucey and Bob Bolling's work on various Archie Comics titles.

[26] He was impressed by the longer, "epic" stories he found, for example, in Classics Illustrated, or in issue #2 of Charlton Premiere Comics[27] The style of Gilbert's work has been described as magic realism or as "magic-realist take on Central American soap opera".

[29] According to Dominican-American writer and MIT creative writing professor Junot Díaz, Gilbert Hernández ideally would be considered "one of the greatest American storytellers".

[29] He is also co-creator and co-star (with his wife, Carol Kovinick) of The Naked Cosmos,[29] an eccentric low-budget TV show about a cosmic prophet known as Quintas.