It's time again for another Weekly Comics Hype. I tend to do these alphabetically, and several months back, I started talking about the phenomenally entertaining series Love & Rockets by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez. This is effectively an anthology series, with each brother telling stories in their own, separate worlds, and occasionally adding unreated strips alongside them. Last time, I told you about Jaime's stories of Maggie and Hopey, collected under the umbrella title Locas, and this time I want to tell you about Gilbert's tales of the strange world of Palomar.
Gilbert's stories, initially grouped under the title "Heartbreak Soup," tell the life story of a woman named Luba. Palomar collects the tales that deal with her life in this small, isolated farming community somewhere in Latin America. Here, she opens a public bathhouse, and later becomes mayor and opens a movie theatre which shows millionth-run screenings of whatever film prints she can get in. She raises seven children from four fathers, and serves as the linchpin for stories about this community.
And this community is huge. Gilbert juggles a simply amazing number of characters, with a cast of complicated, achingly real people larger than just about anybody title in the business. Initially, I found myself a little hesitant just because of the number of characters, but I was pleased to learn that the stories flow with such grace and emotional power that I had no trouble keeping up with all of the people.
In part, the setting itself helps define the world. You won't find a review of Gilbert's stories which doesn't include the phrase "magical realism" or the name "Gabriel Garcia Marquez," and the two writers indeed have a great deal in common. Palomar is a town with mysterious sunken statues in a lake, and where, from a particular bench, certain members of the community can see the ghosts of loved ones standing under a tree.
This is one of the strip's recurring elements, and it's used to amazing effect in "Human Diastrophism," a 112-page story which takes up about a fifth of this collection and which features one of the most emotionally powerful death scenes I've ever come across. And this 500-page hardcover collection is not a book you want to drop on your foot in shock.
Both Hernandez brothers are remarkably proficient at creating incredibly vivid and complex characters, who aren't two-dimensional good guys. Readers will find their sympathies with Luba stretched to breaking points rarely seen in comics when she takes out her violent temper on her oldest daughter Maricela in a truly shocking scene with long-reaching ramifications.
Unfortunately, collecting either Hernandez brother's storylines is made quite complicated by the way they are published. Since any given issue of Love & Rockets or one of its side comics can contain any number of pages by either creator, and the stories run for as many pages not episodes as is necessary to tell the story, the earliest collected editions are quite haphazard in their presentation. However, unlike Jaime, who I would argue started falteringly and found his feet after a few years, Gilbert's stories were captivating and powerful from the outset. The Palomar collection is simply amazing and will not disappoint, but readers more interested in a slightly smaller investment might want to look into the earlier trades.
The Love & Rockets page at Millarworld's trade.paperback.list explains the breakdown pretty well, but for the record, Palomar stories appear in the first six volumes of the collected editions, the sixth, Duck Feet, includes one of the best of the early tales. But if you want "Human Diastrophism," the story where everything goes to hell and monkeys invade the town while Sheriff Chelo tries to identify a multiple murderer and Tonzantzin finds herself so enraged by her government's actions that she is driven to a horrifying response, you can find it in the pages of the eighth volume, Blood of Palomar:
Finally, the Palomar stories although not Luba's reach their conclusion in volume 14, Luba Conquers the World. There are other stories available, tracing her life before arriving in Palomar and since leaving, which will be discussed at other times.
I mentioned some weeks ago that a new series of collected Love & Rockets editions would be replacing the existing ones. The first of these, Heartbreak Soup, is scheduled for January and is available for preorder from some outlets:
The Love & Rockets series is available from your local comic shop, who would enjoy your custom; new books ship on Wednesdays, so why not stop in after work?
Gilbert's stories, initially grouped under the title "Heartbreak Soup," tell the life story of a woman named Luba. Palomar collects the tales that deal with her life in this small, isolated farming community somewhere in Latin America. Here, she opens a public bathhouse, and later becomes mayor and opens a movie theatre which shows millionth-run screenings of whatever film prints she can get in. She raises seven children from four fathers, and serves as the linchpin for stories about this community.
And this community is huge. Gilbert juggles a simply amazing number of characters, with a cast of complicated, achingly real people larger than just about anybody title in the business. Initially, I found myself a little hesitant just because of the number of characters, but I was pleased to learn that the stories flow with such grace and emotional power that I had no trouble keeping up with all of the people.
In part, the setting itself helps define the world. You won't find a review of Gilbert's stories which doesn't include the phrase "magical realism" or the name "Gabriel Garcia Marquez," and the two writers indeed have a great deal in common. Palomar is a town with mysterious sunken statues in a lake, and where, from a particular bench, certain members of the community can see the ghosts of loved ones standing under a tree.
This is one of the strip's recurring elements, and it's used to amazing effect in "Human Diastrophism," a 112-page story which takes up about a fifth of this collection and which features one of the most emotionally powerful death scenes I've ever come across. And this 500-page hardcover collection is not a book you want to drop on your foot in shock.
Both Hernandez brothers are remarkably proficient at creating incredibly vivid and complex characters, who aren't two-dimensional good guys. Readers will find their sympathies with Luba stretched to breaking points rarely seen in comics when she takes out her violent temper on her oldest daughter Maricela in a truly shocking scene with long-reaching ramifications.
Unfortunately, collecting either Hernandez brother's storylines is made quite complicated by the way they are published. Since any given issue of Love & Rockets or one of its side comics can contain any number of pages by either creator, and the stories run for as many pages not episodes as is necessary to tell the story, the earliest collected editions are quite haphazard in their presentation. However, unlike Jaime, who I would argue started falteringly and found his feet after a few years, Gilbert's stories were captivating and powerful from the outset. The Palomar collection is simply amazing and will not disappoint, but readers more interested in a slightly smaller investment might want to look into the earlier trades.
The Love & Rockets page at Millarworld's trade.paperback.list explains the breakdown pretty well, but for the record, Palomar stories appear in the first six volumes of the collected editions, the sixth, Duck Feet, includes one of the best of the early tales. But if you want "Human Diastrophism," the story where everything goes to hell and monkeys invade the town while Sheriff Chelo tries to identify a multiple murderer and Tonzantzin finds herself so enraged by her government's actions that she is driven to a horrifying response, you can find it in the pages of the eighth volume, Blood of Palomar:
Finally, the Palomar stories although not Luba's reach their conclusion in volume 14, Luba Conquers the World. There are other stories available, tracing her life before arriving in Palomar and since leaving, which will be discussed at other times.
I mentioned some weeks ago that a new series of collected Love & Rockets editions would be replacing the existing ones. The first of these, Heartbreak Soup, is scheduled for January and is available for preorder from some outlets:
The Love & Rockets series is available from your local comic shop, who would enjoy your custom; new books ship on Wednesdays, so why not stop in after work?