Love & Rockets - classic or dud

Birdland is fucking great.

Birdland is weird. Aside from actual penetration shots, though, it's not that much weirder or more graphic than a lot of Beto's stuff.

And it does technically fit into the Palomar universe. So you can justify buying it on those grounds, if nothing else.

It's even got some characters from BEM in it! And it's got some of Beto's funniest dialogue.

eh, saying something has any relationship with BEM is not exactly a recommendation, at least not for me.

The characters later turn up in the regular Betoverse.

ok why did no one tell me that the titan re-issues are different sizes from the fantagraphics ones??? this is totally fucking me up

heh. I now have pretty close to TWO complete collections due to this discrepancy and OCD.

oh man i've already started thinking abt that :(

Titan's 80s series or...?

I never even read this purchased copy of Locas In Love, but it looks like the second Jaime hardcover is scheduled now, too:

http://www.amazon.com/Locas-II-Maggie-Hopey-Ray/dp/1606991566

Looks like it has Ghost of Hoppers, too. I still haven't picked up Whoa, Nellie! so I'm wondering if I should just wait for this, or keep getting the trades anyway. Anyone know exactly what this will cover, compared to the current Fantagraphics guide?

I swear, these guys' reprint catalog is getting more complicated than Charlie Parker's.

Everytime I get ahold of a trade and scan those last few pages, I think I'd be more than willing to buy a collection of L&R front and back covers - some of them are so priceless I'm frequently tempted to buy a back issue, despite the fact that I probably have the contents of said issue in question in collected form.

would assume new HC just runs Whoa Nellie -> Colour Special + Penny Century/Locas In Love + Dicks & Deedees -> Ghost Of Hoppers, maybe with the NYT colour story as end signatures.

but then again since Vol III is running in a new direction, probably includes Hopey Gets Glasses and La Perla for sure.

glad to be helpful.

Yeah, that's the thing, I don't want to guess on it... if I didn't see the Amazon listing I'd have no idea this was even coming out. Haven't been able to find any reliable information on this on Fantagraphics' site or anywhere. Not to mention, the other Locas hardcover left out miscellaneous stuff here and there to streamline it and keep the pagecount down.

I swear, these guys' reprint catalog is getting more complicated than Charlie Parker's.

^QFT

to be fair, Fanta might put some info on the site once it's less than six months to the release date.

Robot 6 reckon the catalog suggests that: "As with the last Locas coffee-table book, this aims to be an all-inclusive collection, bringing you up to date on what those nutty Hoppers kids have been up to lately. Includes such tales as Ghost of Hoppers and the recent Education of Hopey Glass."

Locas wasn't technically all-inclusive - it turned out the new paperbacks were definitely more comprehensive. Also, if it's already solicited and even has a page count, they must know what's in it at this point, right? So why not put out a press release or something? (Coincidentally, that Robot 6 page is where I found out about this in the first place, haha)

They even have put up a page to clarify the confusing reprint situation up through Vol. 3. My paranoid guess is that they still have tons of the old trades and floppies in their warehouse and still want to clear them out. Or more likely, they are just being lazy.

Yeah, all-inclusive is Robot6's mistake, but no, it's not been solicited for actual orders yet, that'll be months off - this info will be from their book trade catalog, which you can get if yr in the 20/20 club. I imagine if you ask on the TCJ message board, it would take about 90 minutes before Kim posted a helpful reply.

Hey, that's a good suggestion. I've never even been to the TCJ site! Just signed up for the forums and asked (naturally, there was an existing "how do I read L&R chronologically?" thread), I'll post again if I hear anything.

I hope L+R is classic, because last week I ordered two volumes (Heartbreak Soup and Maggie the Mechanic) cold.

The Amazon description says: "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."

When I drunkenly ordered this, I interpreted this as meaning that I would be starting with Love and Rockets and the very beginning, at the first issue, moving on to the second, and so on. Now when I think about it, it means that it will be present certain stories (Palomar, for example) in perfect order, not the series as a whole. (?)

I swear, these guys' reprint catalog is getting more complicated than Charlie Parker's.

^^

most accessible form yet: as a series of compact, thick, affordable, mass-market volumes that present the whole story in perfect chronological order

->

certain stories (Palomar, for example) in perfect order, not the series as a whole. (?)

yes. three volumes of Maggie (& Hopey & Their Pals) by Xaime, three volumes of Palomar (& Its Denizens' Adventures Elsewhere) by Beto, and one volume of Errata Stigmata by Beto, Rocky & Fumble by Xaime and miscellaneous shorts by Beto, Xaime and Mario.

the small paperbacks are the completely comprehensible, non-Charlie-Parker version of the catalogue.

ie, if you stick to those, you can ignore any and all books in other formats.

this 'how to read love and rockets' page on the fantagraphics site is reasonably clear:

http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&Itemid=135

Everything from MAGGIE AND HOPEY COLOR FUN (you're right, no WHOA NELLIE) through LOVE AND ROCKETS VOL. II #19 (i.e. short of the NYT Rena story). Or in book terms, LOCAS IN LOVE, DICKS AND DEEDEES, GHOST OF HOPPERS, DICKS AND DEEDEES.

Also I'm pretty sure he meant Education of Hopey Glass instead Dicks and Deedees a second time.

OCD Alert: the upcoming second Fantagraphics Locas HC will be 8" x 5", according to Amazon (who do make mistakes), while the first one was 11" x 9". Maybe Kim can clear this up?

The stories were all drawn for comic size/proportions, not magazine, so it's actually entirely probable.

how is the new luba hardcover? does it leave a bunch of stuff out, as per what seems to be the norm?

bought the Luba hardcover recently as hadn't read any of the stuff in it before. bit puzzled by the order of things - loads on fritz, petra and venus before you get to luba (who seems pretty boring by comparison now ha).

anyway i re-read the Human Diastrophism and Beyond Palomar/Poison River stuff again but was wondering about various characters attitudes to English esp. Pipo's - living in Cali but refusing to speak it - to what extent is Beto making a political point here? An odd thing I noticed (tho may be mistaken) is that whenever the bitching about English comes up it always seems to come from women (Luba, Pipo, Carmen, Tonantzin iirc, uh...that girl who ends up marrying Petra and Fritz's Dad?) and wondered if this was intentional and why (maybe just suggesting the women are more defiant and proud i guess).

New issue was out as of San Diego. Super-intense and great Jaime story; Gilbert's "Fritz's movies/Killer" business getting weirder and weirder. Furry sex, etc.

Furry Sex!

Ape Sex?

hah! I'm holding off on reading New Adventures until I finish Volume II which I can't be bothered to track down all 20 issues of separately at the moment. Should have gotten them all from Fantagraphics when they were $40 a few years ago.

I'm convinced I'm going to wind up with a L&R tattoo one day.

Just read "Locas II," "Luba" and "High Soft Lisp." Throw in "La Maggie La Loca" from #20/The Art of Jaime Hernandez/the NYT Magazine Sunday Funnies, and you're basically up to speed.

Just finished reading issue 3 of New Adventures. Xaime is on FIRE lately.

Ape sex is also proper good.

I don't know if it was mentioned anywhere on ilx, but The Daily Cross Hatch did a good interview with Xaime recently. Here's pt. 4, which has links to the first three:
http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2010/11/23/interview-jaime-hernandez-pt-4-of-4/

Xaime is on FIRE lately.

Xaime has never, ever been better than the new New Stories, but I feel he's been on a cold streak lately otherwise - the NYT story really dragged and I don't think worked for a new audience, and the Ti-Girls story that took up the first TWO YEARS of this bold new format could not have been a worse introduction for new bookstore-based readers to his style, his world, and L&R in general. (Would have been PERFECT for when they went to comic-book format and colour in the 90s though!)

i wasn't crazy about ti-girls... i still haven't gotten around to his story in L&RNS 3, but i haven't heard anyone say it was anything else than the best he's ever done, so i suppose i should get on it. speaking of recent xaime, though, i did really like his story in kramers ergot 7 about the time machine.

Seriously, I haven't been paying as much attention to Jaime for years. Of course Gilbert's stuff had me totally lost, too big, I got confused, but I've been loving all his weird Fritz movie stuff and his weird stuff. But the two Xaime stories in number 3 just blew me away. Part of my problem has just been to not really keep up. I've read it all, but it's been so long since I've gone back and read stuff that I've lost sense of both of them> I think I've been pissed by all the various reissue formats and have gotten confused about what I've read or haven't read.

But the Xaime stuff with her younger brother, the flashback, Ray etc. Awesome stuff.

30th Anniversary panel at SDCC - 1 hour 24. All three Bros, Gary Groth interviewing and powerpointing, other surprises.

thanks!

I have ordered what I need to get up to date with the reprints.

I could just never get into Beto. Jaime was always more my speed. It's inspiring how he's aging his characters.

i had the opposite reaction to most people, oddly enough. i found it easy to become completely immersed in the palomar stories, while the locas stuff took me a few readings and rereadings before i felt the same way. i think part of it has to do with how locas transformed in its early years, whereas palomar is what it is from the earliest stories.

They were guests on the NPR music program Alt.Latino this past week -- can listen here, posted yesterday: http://www.npr.org/2012/09/27/160936447/love-and-rockets-and-music-comic-book-pioneers-gil-jaime-hernandez
Pretty good interview, nothing new for anyone who knows any of their bio.

I've gone back and forth. I mentioned a bit about it above but with more detail...When I got into them, it was all about Jaime. The punk rock lesbians, the gangs, the sci-fi action in the early stuff. Gilbert's stuff I didn't really appreciate. As I got older and the series progessed and evolved, there was a period where I suddenly started to really get into Gilbert, I loved the magical realism element and the stories in general. At a certain point I felt like Jaime's stuff was losing me, like he was just doing these slice of life things with these characters and I was losing sense of any overal story arc, while Gilbert was just getting bigger and better. Stuff like Poison River really killed me. And Gilbert's many non-Palomar stuff and different series and side-projects and the New Love stuff, the really twisted Jim Woodring-esque craziness.

But I totally lost track, just couldn't keep up with all the different series and Gilbert's Palomar family tree got too big for me to follow. And more recently I fell back in love with Jaime.

I mean, I'm splitting hairs, I love them both for similar and different reasons. Much of it is my own fault, it's been a long time since I've stepped back and read a lot in order, but I blame them...all the different series, it got so complicated! And they wouldn't come out for ages then suddenly there'd be a bunch and I'd forget if I had one already and I'd buy the same one again. Then they'd come out with the book and they've edited the story and added 50 pages. It's really frustrating!

If I had the money I'd go back and buy all the books of everything since the first series, because I'm just lost.

I mean, read this:

http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&Itemid=135

and tell me it doesn't piss you off!

Which reminds me, why didn't they include Poison River in the Palomar hardcover? I don't know how you can read that without realizing that in the middle of those stories Gilbert wrote an epic history that relates to current story.

The hardcovers are ridiculous. It seems like the new reprint 'digests' are gonna be pretty all-encompassing, so I think you can stick with those if you're patient. But, yeah, the numerous collection projects are pretty irritating, but I have all of the original series collections and all of the v.2 issues and I'm slowly amassing the 'digests' and the New Stories annuals, so I feel like I don't have to worry about much else.

I do agree with you re: the scattershot nature of Beto's latter day output. I gave up trying to get it all (or even keep up with however many books he puts out in a year), but that's due in large part to the fact that the stuff he's done lately doesn't interest or engage me as much as the Palomar proper stuff does. Hopefully he recollects it into 'digests' at some point down the line.