Love and Rockets

Brilliant comics, I loved them, it was the story of my life for a while. Maybe still is...

HE'S SO CUTE IT'S SCARY, HOPEY!!!

I'm amazed more people here haven't gone Wow yeah. I just searched like I should have before starting this thread: Nothing.

Maggie is managing an apartment block in LA. She briefly shared her flat with Isobel but found Izzy's eccentricity a bit too much to handle - it would also appear that Izzy's demons are starting to haunt Maggie (flies in the swimming pool etc). She has chalk&cheese relationship with a foul-mouthed walking disaster area named Viv who held down a job on Julie Wree's cable talk show. Apart from a few brief appearances, Hopey hasn't figured too much.

Ray and Doyle meet up for the first time in years. The story ends with Doyle drunkenly blowing a paralytic Ray in an alleyway.

Issue 5 tells the story of Penny Century's first meetings with (now dead) H.R. Costigan.

Gilbert seems to have abandoned most of the Palomar crew for now. He's concentrating on the story of Fritz in the 'The High Soft Lisp', a new series 'Julio's Day' and a Mario-scripted thriller 'Me for the Unknown'. His best piece in this run was the disturbing Roy-in-prison story '30,000 Hours to Kill' told in loads of tiny panels.

i still haven't sat down and read all of beto's stuff properly yet, tho i do plan to order the collected "palomar" book one of these days.

'Duck Feet' and 'Blood of Palomar' were absolutely superb. X was great but I wasn't so sure about the big time/place panel jumps towards the end. I've not read 'Poison River' yet.

Who do you think The Real Love & Rockets sounded like? I was thinking a sort of proto-Pixies as well.

There's an enormous hardcover of most of Gilbert's stuff, "Palomar," which came out last year; a 700-page collection of Jaime's Maggie-and-Hopey series from the original L&R #1-50, "Locas," is coming out this fall.

If you want to start somewhere with Jaime, though, I really really really love "Wig Wam Bam."

Has anyone else picked up those brand-new mass market paperbacks Fantagraphics just put out last/this year? It collects every single story from all 50 issues of the '83-'96 run in 7 ultra-cheap books arranged chronologically by saga (3 "Locas", 3 "Palomar", 1 misc. stories). They're all like $6-$10 on Amazon and they're absolutely incredible.

These things?

http://www.notempire.com/images/uploads/loveandrockets.jpg

Never properly followed up on robster's advice to me upthread, but got these, and <3 <3.

"Heartbreak Soup" from those volumes is my go-to gift for people who've never read comics.

I have that set and love it. Also have the big Luba book which is every bit as great.

Now I'm deciding which of these I need to round out the collection.

Locas 2
Penny Century
High Soft Lisp

Thoughts?

I'm also definitely getting The Art of Jaime Hernandez - looks really awesome.

Not sure what's in Locas 2. I just read Penny Century and it was great, and in that same format.

hmmm... jacked up one of my links.

Here's the right one.

Penny Century

Isn't Locas 2 just the Penny Century stuff and the new L&R Maggie/Hopey/Ray stories?

I have to say, the multiple formats that Fantagraphics releases these in leave me feeling pretty confused.

I'm guessing everything in Locas 2 (which contains the Penny Century stuff) will be reprinted in that smaller size eventually.

How to Read Love and Rockets.

This looks interesting

xp that's really annoying

haven't looked at that "how to read L&R" page in a long time, didn't realize a lot of those new collections had come out in the last year

annoyed because I bought Locas in Love, and I want to read Oh, Nellie! but they did weird staggering between the HC and paperback releases for Locas II/Penny Century TPB

had no idea Chance in Hell was actually connected to the L&R Beto-verse, interesting. that was a dark tale

I reread Locas II over the last couple of weeks and had to take regular staggered-by-genius breaks.

OH MY GOD, I just finished the Penny Century TPB and forgot how much I love the Locas stories. I miss Jaime's experimentation with panels and gutters and the like (nearly EVERY page was a neat 2x6 grid of squares) but it was so great to read it again. I'm sort of halfheartedly (or 2/3heartedly) considering an L&R tattoo...

Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. is, imo, the undisputed best of these books, but it's difficult to give to someone w/o having them read Maggie the Mechanic, which sort of draaaaaggs in the beginning.

About the How to Read Page: I've looked at it many times and it just makes me more confused about the best way to follow the stories.

I would really, really really love to have this print of #24's cover --

http://www.reddingk.com/img/printBIG_no24.jpg

xp That's why it's annoying. Locas doesn't have all the Maggie the Mechanic stories, right?

If you're talking about the first hardcover, I think it has all of them, it's missing some of the stories not related to Maggie or Hopey (unless you mean specific stories from TPB collection #1, in which case I don't know). I still haven't read the famous "Flies on the Ceiling" for example, it wasn't collected in it since it's an Izzy story. Someday I'll hopefully splurge and just buy all the small trades so I can finally read those missing stories.

So annoying - I would definitely have gotten Locas II HC if it included Whoa, Nellie, now I have to either wait for the next Jaime softcover to make sure I'll get all of this, or get the HC and track down the Whoa, Nellie trade (which is OOP).

xxpost

That #24 cover is one of the best things Jaime has ever done.

I still own the original comic, which I bought when I was 13. :>P

heh...I may have you beat, I have the original issues starting from #2.

Nice.

A cool blog for all things L&R related.

I agree that reprinting method for this stuff is annoying as all hell. Once they started releasing the HCs (which I would advise against, because they do omit some stuff) and the squarebound editions, I stopped buying the original series of collections, thinking that they were moving to this new collection method. But then they just came out with the High Soft Lisp collection, which means that Fantagraphics is currently engaged in three different reprint series of the same material. Which is a little cynical and moneygrubby and seemingly intentionally obfuscatory on their part...but I love the stuff enough that I'm still buying the squarebound volumes, despite having all of the original collections. Damn you, Fanta.

Nhex-- "Whoa, Nellie!" is in the new Penny Century tpb and I think it's even cheaper than "Whoa, Nellie!" alone.

L&R podcast coming right up!

Serial II!

Jay killed Speedy Ortiz.

last few months I got Return of the Ti Girls and Love Bunglers and hfs especially @ the latter, just really masterful. Got genuinely emotional over the last few pages.

Love and Rockets vol 4, #1 should be out today.

what?!?! I've gone to two diff comic book stores in the last month and both have been like "hm nope it's not in our catalog yet, it'll prob be a few more months"

They have no idea what they're talking about. I preordered it months ago when it was first solicited by Diamond.

ugh what the fuck TWO DIFF SHOPS were clueless and now I've confirmed on both of those shops' website that it's in stock as of yday, wtf idiotz

I think some places order Fanta stuff via other means or something. I remember this being a thing when I picked up the Ice Haven issue of Eightball when it first came out and got into a squabble with someone who couldn't find a copy anywhere in NYC and didn't believe it had actually been released.

in their defense, as of last week I was finding it very difficult to get any clear information about when this was coming out from the Fantagraphics site or anywhere else.

looks like the first Library collection of the New Stories books is coming in January 2018

http://www.fantagraphics.com/angelsmagpies/

jesus I didn't even know there was a "Vol IV" now. They have to be kidding.

I think I was caught up with owning Vol III.

looking at:

http://www.fantagraphics.com/howtoreadloveandrockets

what I want to know is...is everything in the "Love and Rockets Graphic Novels" also in "The Love and Rockets Library"?

yes. there have been tweaks in content between formats in the past but iirc the "library" books collect pretty much everything.

the "graphic novels" get published first. they are hardcover books in a large size. usually each has a unique stand-alone design.

the "library" books get published some years later. they are paperback books with a smaller page size and are designed in a uniform format.

essentially: the "graphic novels" are for those who want the most-up-to-date work with larger art in a nice hardcover book. otherwise the "library" books are the way to go at this point.

what i meant there was that the "library" books collect the same material some years later.

from gilbert in 1986

https://66.media.tumblr.com/93f69002c4367876b068c04476cedbd8/tumblr_p164s6t3XE1sfawn5o1_1280.jpg

Oof.

My Covid shut-in reading has been Love & Rockets, having read none of it prior.

I started with the Hoppers stuff and ran through all of that before moving onto Beto's books. Finished his and now I'm reading Amor Y Cohetes, which rounds up all of the L&R stuff that has nothing to do with Hoppers or Palomar. It's been months of reading and it feels weird to be nearing the end of it, especially since this collection of odds and ends is sort of underwhelming.

I love all of Jaime's stuff. The start was a little bumpy but his art is amazingly tight. I adore Maggie as a character; I thought I was too old to have a comic book crush! Ti-Girls was almost too goofy but it was a nice break. It made Love Bunglers hit harder.

Beto started off really strong but as it moved away from Palomar it... changed. I don't mind the shift in scenery, but the stories started to feel inconsequential while the art became slicker. And the sex was constant to the point of embarrassment. Yet it really kind of became its own thing and I admire that. The later stuff feels like straight Beto, while the earlier works are attempts at being profound. I still like the Palomar storylines more than Fritz & Petra, but those later books are more true in a way.

But damn, Jaime can draw.

Yeah some of those panels are so beautiful. How many people started drawing because of those Hoppers comix I wonder?

Seriously amazing. His art is perfectly balanced as a panel, as a page, as a spread. I can imagine Beto's stuff being colored, but not Jaime's.

🚨🚨🚨

This is an utterly insane deal for the full Hernandez Bros catalog

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/complete-love-and-rockets-fantagraphics-books

Boy ain't that the truth.

Makes me wish I didn't already own most of this stuff. I'm trying figure out whether this would be an overwhelming gift for various people I know.

WOW! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I have the four hardback collections (Locas, Locas II, Palomar, Luba) plus several of the Library editions, so this will fill in a LOT of blanks. I'm still gradually making my way through "New Stories" actually. I never seriously thought of reading L&R digitally before, but seeing these blown up on a 32-inch monitor (rather than having to break out the reading glasses for the Library editions) have made me reconsider. And "L&R: The Covers" looks amazing on a big screen. And "The L&R Companion" has so many obsessive details, it's crazy - SOMEONE had to do it, and I'm glad they did.

So according to the Fantagraphics *How to read L&R* page, you'll still need the Jaime book "Is This How You See Me?" (not included in the Humble Bundle). Then if you're going to include spin-offs, it looks like "Psychodrama Illustrated" #1 and #2 (Fritz stories) and "The Adventures of Venus" are also not included in the bundle (and surely more). But of course what you're getting for $25 is AN ABSURDLY HUGE AMOUNT...24 books (Vol. 1 & 2, "New Stories" and spin-offs) and 11 issues of L&R Vol. IV.

Oh wait, apparently "Luba and Her Family" (Library vol. 10) includes "The Adventures of Venus."

Holy shit, what a deal. Done.

The Covers book is beautiful, one of my favorite things they put out. That alone is easily worth $25.

Psychodrama Illustrated is up to #5 fyi

also iirc one Venus story is not reprinted in Luba & Her Family

(plus there are several hundred pages of Beto not collected in any book yet, so you might get confused with the L&R v4 material. but that can happen to full-time readers anyway)

That's a heckuva deal!
How are y'all going to read these? iPads? Laptops?
Also, how big is the whole collection? Coupla gb? I couldn't find a measure on the site...

This is a very cool move, a good cause. (And the only reason I’m not buying is because I’m still a physical media guy for comics.)

xp
1.3G in pdf format.

Thanks nickn, I'm not looking forward to reading them on a screen but it's a sweet deal and for a good cause... pretty tempting...

Is the series still going, and if not when did it end? (I last saw this around 1992 or so...)

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, June 30, 2004 6:03 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/27/books/jaime-hernandez-cartoonist.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0E4.utJe.eOFSr0TDT6tC&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/27/books/jaime-hernandez-cartoonist.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0E4.utJe.eOFSr0TDT6tC&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare🕸

David J is touring the US apparently with a so acoustic show?

Wrong L&R

yeah, he lives up in Sonoma County I think... he was playing with the Violent Femmes drummer but I don't know if that's the case anymore

no, he lives in Ventura… his brother lives in Hollywood.

link for the dates? searching is hard with the "other" David J

Wrong L&R

lol I’m so sorry

anyway form his Facebook:

Some great shots here from the last show at the New Marigny Theatre, New Orleans. Photography: Steven Hatley.

The tour continues tomorrow in Atlanta at Electron Gardens then it’s onto the following dates:

December 5 - Savannah (private event)
December 7 - Raleigh, Pour House
December 9 - NYC, Slipper Room
December 11 - Phili, The Convent
December 13 - Washington DC (private event)
December 14 - Arlington, Renegade

thanks!

Remember that issue of Love and Rockets where the wallpaper had a diamond pattern on it filled with letters that spelled out "the comic not the band" or something? That was like the coolest thing I'd ever seen at the time.

#26, June 1988. “This comic has nothing to do with the band.”

I was at a mini- comic convention type thing once where they were there, and someone asked about the band, and they were mad about it. "They didn't ask, and they suck" to paraphrase.

Also, I went to junior high with them, Gilbert was in my PE class. They did little comics even then.

The updated Sketchbooks volume has a bunch of their (later) teenage comics, and stuff from Jaime’s first ever sketchbook that a high school teacher gave him.

Was wearing my Love & Rockets #24 tee at a party last summer and an older goth lady accosted me, asked me if I was a fan, and when I said I'd never heard the band's music went on a tirade against me about how people who wear the shirts of a band they don't even know, etc etc. She was fairly contrite when I explained my tee was from the comic.

They're a pretty good band.

Not Los Bros good, but good.

#26, June 1988. “This comic has nothing to do with the band.”

And the back cover of the Collected Vol. 7 paperback in the box set was faked up in order to show the wallpaper more clearly.