Love & Rockets
Fantagraphics. All written and drawn by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez unless otherwise noted.
1 Music for Mechanics (Mario, Jaime & Gilbert; 1-2).
[From Fantagraphics: It starts with the first glimpse of Maggie and
Hopey and ends with the first glimpse of Palomar. In between you'll find
rocket repairmen, bug-eyed monsters, voodoo priestesses, punk-rock dungeons,
revolutionaries, stigmatics, billionaires, locas, locos, and the ground
rules for softball with dinosaurs. Music for Mechanics is the ten years
of pent-up creativity that burst forth in the first two issues of Love and
Rockets. Featuring the all time favorite "Mechanics" story, the
postmodern sci-fi goof-off "BEM", "Locas Tambien", "Music
for Monsters", "Radio Zero", "Somewhere in California",
and more.]
ArtBomb review
2 Chelo's Burden (3-4). [From Fantagraphics:
Reprints #3 containing Gilbert's first epic of Palomar, "Heartbreak
Soup," & Jaime's classic "100 Rooms," plus six new pages
for this volume.]
ArtBomb review
3 Las Mujeres Perdidas (5-8). [From Fantagraphics:
"The Lost Women" in the title are Maggie Chascarrillo, the punky
prosolar mechanic, and Rena Titanon, the aging queen of wrestlers—and
"Las Mujeres Perdidas" is Jaime Hernandez's longest and most ambitious
"Mechanics" tale, a melodramatic adventure story suffused with
the delicate humor and characterization that made Love and Rockets the most
influential comics magazine of the '80s and '90s. This volume also features
more of Gilbert Hernandez's earliest "Heartbreak Soup" tales,
including "Act of Contrition," "The Whispering Tree,"
and "The Laughing Sun."]
ArtBomb review
4 Tears From Heaven (9-12). [From Fantagraphics:
Contains Gilbert's "The Reticent Heart," "Ecce Homo,"
and the longest Errata Stigmata story; plus Jaime's "Penny Century
on the Road," "Retro Rocky," and the unforgetable "graffiti
story" starring Hopey and Izzy.] 
5 House of Raging Women (13-16). [From Fantagraphics:
A special wrestling volume with Maggie and Rena Titanon, plus Gilbert's
"An American in Palomar," "Love Bites," and "Holiday's
in the Sun."] 
6 Duck Feet (17-19). [From Fantagraphics:
Features Gilbert's most supernatural and terrifying Palomar story, "Duck
Feet" alongside one of his most sweetest and most poignant, "Love
Bites; Jaime delves into Maggie and Hopey's past.] 
7 The Death of Speedy (20-28; Jaime stories only).
[From Fantagraphics: A solo Jaime book featuring the moving title
story. Hopey's band goes on tour in "Jerusalem Crickets," and
Maggie goes on the wrestling circuit "In the Valley of the Polar Bears."]
ArtBomb review Old Book of the Week 9/21/05: One of the great comics of all time, Love & Rockets poses some problems for people wanting to dive in. The corpus is huge, and it's hard to know where to start. The single-author collections Locas and Palomar are great, but expensive. And the two brothers, Jaime and Gilbert, have very distinct styles that will not necessarily appeal to the same people. I'm more of a Jaime guy, so I will recommend the most self-contained and intense of his books. The story involves the lives of the Locas girls and their friends getting intertwined with gang warfare, mostly through the bubble-brained activity of Maggie's kid sister. What happens is alternately amusing and disturbing; how Jaime manages to balance the essential lightness of Locas with the dark events of this story is a wonder. If this book doesn't grab you, try Gilbert's Blood of Palomar. If that doesn't either, there's no hope for you. 
8 Blood of Palomar (20-28; Gilbert stories only).
[From Fantagraphics: A serial killer stalks the usually placid streets
of the tiny Central American town of Palomar in "Human Diastrophism,"
the novel-length story in this all-Gilbert Hernandez Love and Rockets collection.
The tangible loss of life is accompanied by the less tangible but no less
real loss of the social and psychological ligaments that bind the inhabitants
of Palomar together. As the story progresses, it becomes evident that the
killer is merely the most obvious symptom of the encroaching modern world;
even after the crisis is resolved, the ripples continue to spread throughout
Palomar... With over three dozen sharply etched characters interwoven in
a confidently complex narrative, "Blood of Palomar" confirms Gilbert
Hernandez's position as one of the finest and boldest comics storytellers
of his generation.] 
9 Flies on the Ceiling (Jaime & Gilbert). [From
Fantagraphics: In 1982, readers of the first issue of Love and Rockets
wondered why Isabel Ruebens was having so much trouble with her writing.
Now, ten years later, Jaime Hernandez finally offers the answer in "Flies
on the Ceiling," one of the most chilling installments in the series.
His other stories in this volume include "Spring of 1982" (a look
at the checkered past of Ray's friend Doyle), the playful "Li'l Ray,"
and the long-awaited reunion of Maggie and Hopey (and even Penny Century).
Gilbert Hernandez is represented with only two major stories, but both are
powerful and inventive: "A Folk Tale" is a re-telling of a classic
fable in modern dress, while "Frida" employs a breathtaking range
of comic book and illustration techniques to chronicle the tragic life of
the surrealist painter Frida Kahlo.] 
10 Love & Rockets X (Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics:
Gilbert takes the reader from Beverly Hills to the dangerous east side of
LA - a superb portrait of a city in decline.]
ArtBomb review
11 Wigwam Bam (31-39; Jaime stories only). [From
Fantagraphics: Jaime's definitive statement on the post-punk culture.
Las Locas prowl from Los Angeles to the East Coast trying to recapture the
carefree spirit of those early days.]
ArtBomb review
12 Poison River (Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics:
Gilbert's revised and expanded Godfather-like epic adds nearly 50 new pages,
tracing Luba's early life and introducing a number of characters that appear
in later issues of L&R.] 
13 Chester Square (40-50; Jaime stories only).
[From Fantagraphics: In this last compilation from the pages of Love
and Rockets, Jaime Hernandez takes the young 'Locas' of 14 years ago back
to and beyond the bleak outpost of Chester Square. Hernandez's story is
a masterpiece of intersections and discordances in which the cultish pop
worlds of punk rock and professional wrestling overlap and where characters
grapple with questions of identity, love and morality in a confusing world
of hasty individual decisions and fleeting moments of human connectedness.]
ArtBomb review
14 Luba Conquers the World (Gilbert). [From
Fantagraphics: No cartoonist has chronicled the turbulence and complexity
of contemporary life as consistently and profoundly as Gilbert Hernandez.
In this, the 14th and penultimate collection from the Hernandez Brothers'
acclaimed Love and Rockets magazine, Gilbert continues to chart the lives
of the women of Palomar in a series of short stories, vignettes, and character
studies. These fictions pose questions surrounding the infinite complications
connecting mothers with daughters, fathers with sons, men with women, siblings,
friends, and lovers with one another. That they are questions not comfortably
asked, much less answered, is why the men and women of Palomar are compelled
to confront them. But, in Hernandez's art, as in life, nothing is simple,
and it takes three generations bearing witness to acts of kindness and cruelty,
of foolishness and wisdom, of suffering and joy, before the characters in
these stories acquire the insight and understanding to reconcile the past
with the present, the dead with the living.] 
15 Hernandez Satyricon (Jaime & Gilbert). [From
Fantagraphics: This 15th volume of the Hernandez Brothers' work collects
all of the remaining strips from the first Love & Rockets series (1982-1996),
plus: over 40 Calendar illustrations done between 1989 and 1993; covers
from the acclaimed comics series; and an annotated section comprising strips
and drawings from obscure and impossible-to-find periodicals, unpublished
strips, and promotional drawings and strips. The stories in this volume
represent a veritable smorgasbord of the Hernandezes' most outrageous and
sublime work, including: three of Jaime's most beautiful children's stories;
Mario's disturbing political fable "Somewhere in the Tropics";
Gilbert's surreal homage to the earliest Love & Rockets and Jaime's
zany cast of characters; and Jaime's most playfully dadesque cartooning
ever, "Easter Hunt!"] 
Palomar:
The "Heartbreak Soup" Stories (Reprints all the Palomar stories
from Vols. 1-6; all of Vol. 8; most of Vol. 14; a short story, "Toco";
all by Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics: For the first
time ever, Fantagraphics is proud to present a single-volume collection
of Gilbert Hernandez's "Heartbreak Soup" stories from Love
& Rockets, which along with RAW magazine defined the modern
literary comics movement of the post-underground generation. This massive
volume collects every "Heartbreak Soup" story from 1993 to 2002
in one 500-page deluxe hardcover edition, presenting the epic for the first
time as the single novel it was always intended to be. Palomar is the mythical
Central American town where the "Heartbreak Soup" stories take
place. The stories weave in and out of the town's entire population, crafting
an intricate tapestry of Latin American experience. Hernandez's densely
plotted and deeply imagined tales are often compared with magic realist
authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende (House of the
Spirits). His depictions of women and Mexican-American experience have
been universally lauded as the best examples the artform has to offer. Luba,
the guiding spirit of Palomar since the outset, has been hailed by The
Nation, Rolling Stone, and Time magazine as one of the
great characters of contemporary American fiction. Hernandez's work, in
addition to the obvious magic realist comparisons, shares an affinity with
other Latin American and Spanish writer/artists, like Frida Kahlo, Federico
Garcia Lorca and Pablo Picasso, all of whom applied a surrealist eye to
what they saw and experienced. Palomar follows the lives of its residents
from Luba's arrival in the town to her exit, twenty years later. Included
are such classic tales as "Sopa de Gran Pena," "Ecce Homo,"
"An American in Palomar," "Human Diastrophism," and
"Farewell, Mi Palomar." Palomar presents one of the richest
accomplishments in the history of the artform in its ideal format for the
first time, making it a must-have for longtime Love & Rockets
fans and new readers alike.]
ArtBomb review Old Book of the Week 10/13/04
Locas:
The Maggie and Hopey Stories (Reprints all the Locas stories from the
original series, except for several from Volume 1 and a scattering from
the other volumes, mostly Penny Century and wrestling stories; all by Jaime).
[From Fantagraphics: One of the most humane, graceful
and imaginatively inexhaustible artists in American popular culture, Jaime
Hernandez has created in Locas one of the great American novels of
the last 25 years, graphic or otherwise. Spanning a quarter-century, Locas
tells the story of Maggie Chascarrillo, a bisexual, Mexican-American woman
attempting to define herself in a community rife with class, race and gender
issues. Maggie's story begins in the early-1980s Southern California rock
scene, when it was shifting from the excesses of glitter rock to the gritty
basics of punk and new wave. "Hardcore" punk rock came to the
fore, and the teenaged Maggie finds herself drawn to the anarchy, energy
and diversity of the scene, which in the hands becomes a very real, habitable
place populated with authentic human beings rather than stereotypes. She
quickly befriends Hopey Glass, a feisty anti-authoritarian punkette who
quickly becomes Maggie's on-again, off-again lover and a constant presence
in her life throughout the book. Maggie comes of age in this tumultuous
environment, with class and racial tension fueling the rising violence between
punks and the already antagonistic LAPD. Hernandez's naturalistic storytelling
and mastery of body language and facial expressions, and his pitch-perfect
depiction of barrio life all makes for an exhilarating read. His characters
are infused with strength, intelligence, independence, imperfection, bitchiness,
frailty, obsessiveness, and so much more. Maggie evolves from an angry young
punk into a mature woman. She encounters cruelties large and small and resigns
herself to dashed hopes, shattered illusions, and even death with ironic
acceptance. Locas presents an incomparable body of work in comics
form, created over 20 years (which not coincidentally mirrors Maggie's arc),
and told with an uncompromising beauty and grace. As the New York Times
Book Review has described it, "These stories have all the visual
smarts of film and the narrative smarts of literature....Hernandez specializes
in psychological detail; we see both text and subtext immediately ....What
better than to open a book that shows there is more going on than we dream
of in our workaday philosophies?"] Book of the Week 10/13/04
1 Heartbreak Soup (Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics: Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2007, Love and Rockets will finally be released in its most accessible form yet: As a series of compact, thick, affordable, mass-market volumes that present the whole story in perfect chronological order. This volume will collect the first half of Gilbert Hernandez’s acclaimed magical-realist tales of “Palomar,” the small Central American town, beginning with the groundbreaking “Sopa de Gran Pena” (which introduces most of his main cast of characters as children, plus the imposing newcomer Luba), and continuing on through such modern-day classics as “Ecce Homo,” “Act of Contrition,” “Duck Feet,” and the great love story “For the Love of Carmen.”] 
2 Human Diastrophism (Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics: This volume collects the second half of Gilbert Hernandez's acclaimed magical-realist tales of "Palomar," the small Central American town, beginning with the landmark "Human Diastrophism," named one of the greatest comic book stories of the 20th Century by The Comics Journal, and continuing on through more modern-day classics. "Human Diastrophism" is the only full graphic novel length "Palomar" story ever created by Gilbert. In it, a serial killer stalks Palomar — but his depredations, hideous as they are, only serve to exacerbate the cracks in the idyllic Central American town as the modern world begins to intrude. "Diastrophism" concludes with the death (the suicide, in fact) of one of Palomar's most beloved characters, and a postscript that provides one of the most hauntingly magical moments of the entire series as a rain of ashes drifts down upon Palomar. Also included are all the post-"Diastrophism" stories, in which Luba's past (as seen in the epic Poison River) comes back to haunt her, and the seeds are sown for the "Palomar diaspora" that ends this dense, enthralling book.] 
3 Beyond Palomar (Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics: For the first half decade of Love and Rockets, Gilbert Hernandez focused on fleshing out his small Central American hamlet of Palomar. But eventually this became too restrictive for the kinds of stories he wanted to tell, and he created, in quick succession, two major standalone graphic novels. Beyond Palomar collects these two groundbreaking works, together for the first time.
"Poison River" is a dizzying period piece often hailed as one of Hernandez's masterpieces. It traces the pre-Palomar childhood of Luba, her teenage marriage to gangster Peter Rio, the secrets behind her mysterious mother, all the way up to her subsequent escape and arrival in Palomar. This story introduces a number of characters and themes that occupied later issues of Love and Rockets (including Luba's mother Maria and her sinister guardian angel Gorgo), and is a riveting page-turner besides, with lots of sex, drugs, guns, politics, and women who can crack walnuts with their stomachs.
"Love and Rockets X," set in the early 1990s (in the waning years of Bush I's post-Reagan hangover, with Gulf War I in the background), takes us from plush Beverly Hills to the dangerous east side and introduces us to a dizzyingly diverse cast of characters, including a lowlife rock 'n' roll band, a "posse" of black youths, a ditzy Hollywood mom and her spoiled son, a gay activist filmmaker and his rebellious, half-Iraqi daughter, and a group of racist thugs whose violent attack on an older woman sets the plot in motion—as well as bringing in several older characters, including a couple of Palomar expatriates.
Beyond Palomar is a wildly original diptych of graphic novels by one of the great cartooning talents of the last quarter century.] 
1 Maggie the Mechanic (Jaime). [From Fantagraphics: The 25th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this, the first of three volumes collecting the adventures of the spunky Maggie, her annoying best friend and sometimes lover Hopey, and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie’s weirdo mentor Izzy as well as the wrestler Rena Titanon and Maggie’s handsome love interest, Rand Race... “Maggie the Mechanic” collects the earliest, punkiest, most heavily sci-fi stories of Maggie and her circle of friends, and you can see the artist (who drew like an angel from the very first panel) refine his approach: Despite these strong shifts in tone, the stunning art and razor sharp characterizations keep this collection consistent, and enthralling throughout. (Note: A number of these stories were not collected in the hardcover Locas.)] 
2 The Girl from Hoppers (Jaime). [From Fantagraphics: After the sci-fi trappings of his earliest stories (as seen in Maggie the Mechanic, the first volume in this series), Hernandez refined his approach, settling on the more naturalistic environment of the fictional Los Angeles barrio, Hoppers, and the lives of the young Mexican-Americans and punk rockers who live there. A central story and one of Jaime's absolute peaks is "The Death of Speedy." Such is Jaime's mastery that even though the end of the story is telegraphed from the very title, the downhill spiral of Speedy, the local heartthrob, is utterly compelling and ultimately quite surprising. Also in this volume, Maggie begins her on-again off-again romance with Ray D., leading to friction and an eventual separation from Hopey. (Note: A number of these stories, including a whole cycle of wrestling stories starring or co-starring Rena Titañon, were not collected in the hardcover Locas.)] 
3 Perla la Loca (Jaime). [From Fantagraphics: Perla la Loca begins with the graphic novel "Wigwam Bam," arguably Jaime Hernandez's definitive statement on the post-punk culture. As Maggie, Hopey, and the rest of the Locas prowl Los Angeles, the East Coast, and parts in between trying to recapture the carefree spirit of those early days—except for Izzy, who tries to flee and ultimately, ironically, is the one who finds Hopey (and who unlocks the secret of Maggie and Hopey's relationship.) "Wigwam Bam" brings us up to date on all the members of Jaime's extensive cast of characters and then drops a narrative bomb on Hopey (and us) in the very last pages.
Split up from Hopey yet again, Maggie bounces back and forth between a one-laundromat town in Texas (the "Chester Square" that serves as the title of two of the strongest stories in the book), where she has to contend with both her own inner demons and a murderous hooker, and Camp Vicki, where she has to fend off her aunt Vicki's attempts to make her a professional wrestler and the unwanted advances of the amorous wrestling champ-to-be, Gina. As usual, Jaime spotlights a wide range of headstrong female characters, including Maggie's sister Esther and her cousin Xochitl; Penny Century, Hopey, and Danita show up as well, as does Rena Titañon (recently seen in Jaime's New York Times serial "La Maggie la Loca"), who, joined by the wrestler El Diablo, dominates the finale with a rousing free-for-all slugfest against six armed thugs. And what's this about Maggie getting married?] 
16 Whoa, Nellie! (3-issue mini; Jamie). [From
Fantagraphics: See the most lovingly drawn women wrestling action in
comics history! Watch best friends Xo and Gina fulfill their lifelong dream
of becoming a top wrestling tag-team! Find out what happens when Xo and
Gina decide to throw friendship aside and fight each other for the coveted
over-the-top-rope battle royale Texas title! All in Jaime Hernandez's first
post-Love & Rockets series, Whoa, Nellie!, the exuberant story of two
friends and their mentor on the pro wrestling circuit! What starts out as
a light-hearted romp leads our two heroines, Xo and Gina, to a life-affirming
but hard-earned lesson in life—illusions lost but their priorities
regained! Includes six new pages drawn especially for the graphic novel,
and a gallery of pin-ups.] 
17 Fear of Comics (Stories from New Love 1-6, Goody Good; Gilbert).
[From Fantagraphics: Fear of Comics is a collection of short stories
from the acclaimed co-creator of Love & Rockets. The Nation wrote in
1998 that "If you've never heard of Gilbert Hernandez, you're missing
out on [one] of the hidden treasures of our impoverished culture."
Hernandez's work has frequently been compared to the fiction of Gabriel
Garcia Marquez; Fear of Comics includes several stories in a magic realist
vein, including "Spirit of the Thing," in which a mysterious and
glamorous white woman arrives in a small Mexican village and finds herself
the subject of the town's gossip. The local outcast, a hunchback, falls
in love with the woman and seeks spiritual guidance from a tree in the village
that shadows the graves of its deceased townpeople; the tree, however, does
not give without exacting a toll. The hunchback's mother burns the tree
down to protect her son, but is the tree itself the enemy, or is it simply
a vessel for the true enemy? Other magic realist fables include "La
Llorona: The Legend of the Crying Woman," and "The Fabulous Ones."
A number of seemingly absurd stories in Fear of Comics can be read as existential
dialogues between Hernandez's ego and id, including "Peripeteia,"
featuring a woman and her anthropomorphic jack-in-the-box, Bolo Cereal,
both of whom are attended to by miniature, flying "love gremlins."
The two debate the existence of God amidst the gremlins, who serve as living
embodiments of their faith, ebbing and flowing in the light of their masters'
consciousness. Fear of Comics spotlights the full-range of Hernandez's talent.
Other stories include "All With a Big Hello," "Roy,"
"Heroin," "Glorified Magnified," "She Sleeps With
Anybody But Me," and "Shout Ramirez and Her Very Best Friend,
Dinky," which includes an appearance by the aformentioned love gremlins.
One of the last stories, "Abraxas," curiously blends elements
from earlier, seemingly unrelated stories, with characters from "Spirit
of the Thing" visited by ten-story-high versions of the love gremlins.
Fear of Comics collects for the first time the very best of Hernandez's
short fiction from the pages of his New Love comic book series as well as
the extremely rare Mr. X series, which first saw print in periodical form
over ten years ago and are highly collectible today.]
ArtBomb review
18 Locas in Love (Penny Century 1-4; Maggie & Hopey Color Fun;
Jaime). [From Fantagraphics: Penny Century is the
title of Hernandez's current ongoing comic book series and Locas in Love
is the first collection, spotlighting the first four issues of the series.
A critical and commercial smash-hit in the world of alternative comic books,
the stories collected here earned Hernandez the coveted "Best Artist"
Harvey Award in 1998. The award, named after MAD magazine creator Harvey
Kurtzman, is akin to the "Best Director" Oscar Award in film.
Although "Penny Century" refers to one of Hernandez's most popular
characters - a voluptuous platinum-blonde heiress whose wealth affords her
the luxury of indulging her fantasy life as a costumed superheroine-cum-bon
vivant - the title Penny Century functions more as a catch-phrase for the
optimistic mood of the series, in which anything can and does happen, where
seemingly unrelated stories when read together give texture to a larger
canvas. This mood is set with the opening story, the eponymously titled
"Penny Century," in which a lonely man named Ray Dominguez, newly
relocated to Los Angeles, can't get the affair he had last year with our
titular heroine out of his head: "That night the animals talked. I
was speaking in tongues. My Dad up in Heaven glanced up from his paper.
The angels went on strike… Couldn't take it anymore. I gave in. I told
her yes, I couldn't live without her. Then, in an instant… Poof! She's
gone." Ray's stories are interspersed throughout other shorts from
Hernandez's extended cast of characters. One of the book's centerpieces
is the stand-alone "Home School," an enchanting tale of sibling
love and rivalry starring two of Hernandez's favorite characters - Maggie
and Izzy - as little girls. The story, which earned another coveted Harvey
Award, this time for "Best Single Issue," has drawn comparisons
to the work of Charles Schulz for its quietly poignant exploration of the
human condition through the minds of children. The book also includes the
classic "Maggie & Hopey Color Fun," a 26-page full-color romp
starring Hernandez's two most popular characters. The LA Weekly once wrote
that Maggie was "one of the great characters of contemporary American
fiction," while The Village Voice wrote that her stories " work
on every level: as engrossing kid stuff, as ironic adult stuff, and as an
analysis of the way various degrees of love, on a scale of infatuation/lust
to romance/commitment, can be portrayed in a comic book."] 
19 Luba in America (Stories from New Love 1-6, Luba 1-4, Fritz & Petra 1; Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics:
Within a few years of its debut in 1981, Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez's
Love & Rockets would virtually define alternative comics in the '80s.
Now, 20 years later, Gilbert Hernandez is more popular than ever, thanks
to the re-launch of his seminal Love & Rockets comic book series earlier
this year. Luba in America, Hernandez's first collection since the relaunch
of L&R, spotlights the artist's most beloved character in a year when
her creator seems to be appearing everywhere, from the pages of Time to
Vibe to CNN and The Los Angeles Times. Luba, of course, was the central
figure of Hernandez's Palomar, the south of the border town that Gilbert
documented for 15 years in the original Love & Rockets series (1981-1996).
In this collection, however, we find Luba has moved to America, starting
an entirely fresh new chapter in her life. The book begins with Luba travelling
to the big city, supposedly having left Palomar to pave the way for her
husband to join her in America. Readers quickly discover, however, that
she has a more dire mission. Luba fears that her political history has left
a threat to her family from the old country, and she believes that the only
way to end this threat lies in America. The resulting action is an awesome
blend of political intrigue, sexuality, and Gilbert's characteristically
human portrayal of his characters, most notably his women.] 
20 Dicks and Deedees (Stories from Penny Century 5-7, Love and Rockets vol.
2, 4-5; Jaime). [From Fantagraphics: Armed with a
passion for pop culture and punk rock, Jaime Hernandez (along with his brothers,
Gilbert and Mario) was one of the first comic book artists to give a voice
to minorities and women in the medium’s 70-year history. His character-driven
stories primarily explore the life of a three-dimensional Mexican-American
woman from a fictional barrio of Los Angeles, Maggie Chascarillo, one of
the most complex and recognizable characters in the history of Mexican-American
fiction. Hernandez is the co-creator of Love & Rockets, which along
with RAW magazine defined the modern literary comics movement of the post-underground
generation and celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. This first new
Jaime Hernandez book since the splashy return of Love and Rockets in 2001
spotlights a wide-ranging and funky group of stories from L&R and Hernandez’s
comic Penny Century. The continuing trials and tribulations of Maggie and
Hopey are featured in “Election Day,” “Everybody Loves Me,
Baby” (featuring extensive flashbacks to their early punk days, a reader’s
favorite) and the surreal dream story “The Race.” We also check
up with Maggie’s ex-boyfriend Ray D., who is the recipient of a series
of increasingly rude surprises when his old buddy Doyle shows up, somewhat
the worse for wear, in “The Frog Mouth.” Plus “Bay of Threes,”
which chronicles the romance of Penny Century and H.R. Costigan from (virtually)
cradle to grave.] 
21 Luba: The Book of Ofelia (Stories from Luba 3-10, Luba's Comics and Stories 2-5, Measles 3; Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics: Gilbert Hernandez last wowed critics in 2003 with his epic life's-work Palomar, collecting more than 20 years of groundbreaking comics that Booklist called "the most substantive single work that the comics medium has yet produced." In his first graphic novel in two years, Hernandez's Luba: The Book of Ofelia features the latest travails of Palomar matriarch Luba and her cousin Ofelia, along with their close circle of family, friends, enemies, and lovers. Luba: The Book of Ofelia begins with Luba, Ofelia and company trying to acclimate to life in America, where Luba still has yet to learn English. When Ofelia decides to chronicle her life with Luba in a tell-all book, she discovers inspiration in Luba's young children - the one-armed Casimira, Socorro with the photographic memory, the loner Joselito and the silent Conchita. The children lead Ofelia to a seemingly haunted field where the disembodied voice of a baby crying opens the floodgates of memory, even memories Ofelia has spent a lifetime trying to forget. Meanwhile, Hernandez continues to explore the complex, sometimes violent, sexual dramas that are his trademark: Luba's daughter Guadalupe is now married to Gato, who is the ex-husband of Pipo, who happens to be the producer of the TV show starring Luba's other daughter Doralis. Pipo is dating a man named Igor, who once dated Guadalupe. As if that isn't enough, Luba's beautiful, lisping therapist sister Fritz, preoccupied with two different boyfriends -famous soccer champion Sergio and gorgeous model Enrique- somehow finds time for a third man, Hector, only to change her mind and hook him up with her sister, the bodybuilder Petra. As these characters lives intersect and even more characters come in to the sexually charged fray, things get even more complicated, ultimately with deadly results. Luba: The Book of Ofelia uses elements of Latino soap opera and soft-core porn, with touches of magic-realism, to tell the story of the changes that come with age and the unchanging need for sex and love, with the most vivid, memorable, and honestly depicted characters in comics.] 
22 Ghost of Hoppers (Stories from Love & Rockets vol. 2 1-4, 6-10; Jaime). [From Fantagraphics: Ghost of Hoppers collects for the first time the new adventures of
Maggie Chascarrillo, as serialized in the Love & Rockets comic book, and represents Jaime Hernandez's much-anticipated follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2004 magnum opus Locas, which Entertainment Weekly gave an 'A' for its "innovative technique and complex, character-driven stories about Mexican-American life."
Ghost of Hoppers begins with the newly divorced Maggie now working as the resident building-manager of the notorious Capri Apartments deep in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, where imaginary dogs roam its walkways at night, all the air conditioners are broken, and the empty swimming pool is covered with flies. As if the eccentric, oddball tenants weren't weird enough, Maggie's houseguest and old friend Izzy Ortiz shakes things up with her usual nervous breakdowns, nocturnal screaming, and obsessive fly-swatting (sometimes with a knife!). When Izzy makes a guest appearance on a local cable access talk show to promote her book, Maggie meets the voluptuous Vivian the "Frogmouth," a curvaceous, hapless bombshell with a foghorn voice who is despised by Hopey (Maggie's long time on-again-off-again girlfriend, now a bartender sporting an eye patch after one of Vivian's previous bottle-breaking altercations). Maggie finds herself swept up in Vivian's life of random catfights, her mob-connected, knife-wielding stalker ex-boyfriend, and his violently jealous fiancée. Maggie and Vivian eventually strike up a reluctant and awkward romance, and when they set out for Hoppers to retrieve a stolen art object from Izzy, they get a lot more than they bargained for!] 
23 Luba: Three Daughters (Stories from Luba's Comics & Stories 3-4, 6, 8, Measles 1, Love & Rockets vol. 2 11-16 + 11 original stories; Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics: Luba: Three Daughters is the final book in Gilbert Hernandez’s post-Palomar trilogy, continuing the story of matriarch Luba and her extended family’s travails in the United States after her Central American hometown is destroyed at the end of Palomar. It focuses on Luba and her two sisters, Fritz and Petra, exploring the complex relationships that form between family and how the experiences and actions of one generation influence the next. Renowned for his female characters, Hernandez intersperses his main narrative with “The Kid Stuff Kids,” a series of lighthearted and playful one-pagers starring the young children of the three sisters, richly juxtaposed against the complex family drama at work in Three Daughters. Hernandez’s mix of Latino soap opera, magic realist touches and rich naturalism speak to audiences about the changes that come with age and experience, and they are unparalleled in comics.] 
Chance in Hell (Fantagraphics; OGN; Gilbert). [From Fantagraphics: Gilbert Hernandez's first original graphic novel from Fantagraphics follows on the heels of his acclaimed graphic novel, Sloth, from DC's Vertigo Comics 2006. Chance in Hell tells the story about a little orphan girl who lives in the slums of the slums. Nobody knows who she is or where she's from, but her fellow shantytown inhabitants collectively look over her. The three-act story follows our heroine as she is adopted by a decent man who raises her well, and she eventually marries a kind, well-to-do man, only to discover that she can't relate to the good life and the comforts he provides.] 
Girl Crazy (Dark Horse; 3-issue mini; Gilbert). [From Dark Horse: The muscular Maribel, the flat-chested Kitten, the voluptuous Gaby, and the remarkable Una are on the verge of turning sixteen. At the prime of their lives, without any fears of excess cellulite suddenly appearing under their arms or on their hips, they pursue their own private dreams with their own personal styles and charge through "rites of passage" unlike any you've seen or read—complete with androids, polka dots, two breast implants, one shaved werewolf, and the total destruction of an IRS branch office.] 
Sloth (DC/Vertigo; OGN; Gilbert). [From DC Comics: From Gilbert Hernandez, the award-winning co-creator of Love & Rockets — the series that defined alternative comics — comes SLOTH, Hernandez's first original graphic novel, presented in breathtaking black and white by Vertigo. Troubled teenager Miguel Serra becomes a walking urban legend after he wills himself into a coma and wakes up one year later virtually unchanged — except for his sloth-like pace. Discover how a haunted lemon orchard, a mysterious goatman and murder collide as Miguel, his girlfriend Lita and their friend Romeo take on the teenage wasteland of suburbia. Will it be love or rock-and-roll suicide? Find out in SLOTH, a surrealistic romantic drama in the spirit of David Lynch that takes the art of sequential storytelling to new heights in its use of light and shadow.] 