And that's it for now...

books:


	• Amor Y Cohetes (Love & Rockets) Jaime, Gilbert, Mari Hernandez Fantagraphics Books, 2008 - 280 pages average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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And that's it for now...

At long last, Fantagraphics has released the 7th and final Love and Rockets reprint volume: AMOR Y COHETES. Collecting all the "extras" from Los Bros Hernandez' pioneering independent comic series, this volume contains anything that didn't fit with the regular Locas or Palomar stories. In addition to Jaime and Gilbert, there are a few contributions from Mario Hernandez, who helped to get the series off the ground in the '80s, but eventually moved on to other things while his brothers' more refined and increasingly complex work grew to dominate the title.

The majority of the early stories in this volume are obvious nods to the sci-fi/fantasy adventures that populate Heavy Metal magazine. Some are one-pagers, while others are longer, multi-part affairs. Then there's the occasional political thriller or Errata Stigmata story. Further on, we are treated to a beautifully surreal biography of Frida Kahlo, the Hernandez Satyricon, and the familiar faces of Maggie, Hopey, & Ray D, plus Luba and other residents of Palomar.

The early stories are rough, meandering, and amateurish at times, but paired with the later works, this is a fascinating look at the evolution of Jaime and Gilbert's skills as storytellers. As for Mario - well, his creative skills certainly weren't up to the level of his brothers, and I feel that his lengthy and confusing contributions are the drawbacks of this collection. Still, it's worth the expense to complete the set.

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The Love & Rockets library continues with this special volume.

To a very great extent, Love & Rockets is synonymous with Hoppers' Maggie & Hopey and Palomar's Luba & Carmen & Heraclio & Tonantzin... but there was always more to L&R than that. Amor y Cohetes finally collects together in one convenient package all the non-Maggie and non-Palomar stories by all three Hernandez Brothers from that classic first, 50-issue Love and Rockets series?a dizzying array of styles and approaches that re-confirms these groundbreaking cartoonists' place in the history of comics.

The book leads off with Gilbert's original 40-page sci-fi epic "BEM" from 1981's very first issue of Love & Rockets, featuring a very different Luba and a much looser, Heavy Metal and Marvel Comics-inspired way of storytelling.

Other stories include Jaime's charming "Rocky and Fumble" series starring a planet-hopping girl and her robot; stunning one-shots such as Gilbert's Frida Kahlo biography "Frida" and his shocking autobiographical fantasia "My Love Book"; Mario's genre thrillers which take place "Somewhere in California"; Gilbert's brutally dystopian "Errata Stigmata" stories; the playful "Hernandez Satyricon," with Gilbert drawing Jaime's characters, and "War Paint," with Jaime trying out Palomar; Gilbert's light-hearted "Music for Monsters" starring Bang and Inez; and even a fantastical "non-continuity" Maggie and Hopey story "Easter Hunt" by Jaime that didn't fit into the other books.

Amor y Cohetes, the seventh (and concluding, for now) volume in the new "Complete Love & Rockets" series of compact, affordable paperbacks, shows a very different side of Los Bros Hernandez.

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