In 2003, a series of Gilbert Hernandezs tales from the comic book Love and Rockets were collected into a single graphic novel: Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories. Critical reception was overwhelmingly positive, but while Hernandez received numerous accolades for his skillful depictions of female characters, his equally impressive portrayal of a Latin-American community went virtually unnoticed. Following a brief discussion of comics-related terminology, this thesis examines the ways in which Hernandez uses both the visual and the textual elements of the book to confound stereotypes regarding gender, Latino culture, and, ultimately, a combination of the two.