Love & Rockets - classic or dud

Locas in Love collects the "Penny Century" series -- but in terms of "L&R" itself, there are four "volumes," and Vols. 1 and 2 both ended cleanly (active storylines terminated when the series ended). When New Stories (Vol. 3) ended, Jaime was in the middle of a storyline, which picks up in Vol. 4. Just kind of odd it worked out that way, NBD.

(In other words, it's not a collection straddling two volumes or series that I find awkward, but rather the arbitrary end of Vol. 3 and shift to a new format, mid-story.)

(It also bugs me a little b/c I don't want to buy individual issues of the new volume, just wait for the collections -- but it seems more uncertain these days how long the wait will be.)

I've given up on L+R and have been burned too many times. I will wait until they both retire and I'm retired and I will buy whatever the latest collection fanatagraphics is hawking at that point.

I used to go back and read all the Vol. 1 collections, from the beginning, once a year or so... but no time for that in this stage of my life! (I too will be happily lounging in the retirement village with my stack of books and Ape Sex t-shirt.)

Locas in Love collects the "Penny Century" series

pretty sure it collects like three issues of Penny Century and one story from another issue and most of the Maggie & Hopey Summer Fun Special, but I lent mine to someone two years ago and can't check

I've given up on L+R and have been burned too many times.

if you just buy the "tall" Jaime collections you never get burned! IIRC they still continue the original numbering in the indicia

This looks pretty sweet for fetishizers of artwork/process with $$ to spare: http://www.fantagraphics.com/fantastudiojaimehernandez/

(I'd like to at least read the "new interview with Hernandez, conducted by Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth, that explores the artist’s inspiration and the formal elements of his craft.")

in recent years I've come to the conclusion that Jaime is one of the greatest comics artists ever, and Gilbert I just don't give a shit about

xp

Ugh, I want this, but it may just be too much.

xp

same. in my 20s it was the opposite.

I can get with that if you're talking draftsmanship, but there's way too much fantastic Beto stuff for that to make any sense on like a holistic level.

I will say that I am totally burned out on the Fritz storyline, too many characters that I can't be bothered to figure out.

I started skipping through those parts once I got to New Stories #6 or so.

Yeah, his work has become real scattershot over the last 10 years. It's frustrating because he cranks out way more material than Jaime, but a lot of it is fairly incoherent.

TBF, I don't even bother to try keeping up with Beto's extra-L&R work these days. Except Blubber which was...um, really something. A cry for help, perhaps?

I bailed on Beto after Vol. 1 (when I began buying the Jaime-only books for Vol. 2). He's just not for me. I read one or two of Gilbert's stories in "New Stories"; one of them really disturbed me, in an "I wish I could un-read that" kind of way. (I think it turned out to be "just a movie" at the end, but that didn't save it.)

xxp yep... gilbert is my favorite but a lot of his stuff over the last decade is sub-par. there was an interview a couple of years ago where he said he had been doing so much because he needed the money.

jesus get the guy a patreon account or something. So fucking depressing when artists that brilliant are raking in the money and living like the kings they deserve to be.

excuse me, AREN'T

FYI, Fanta having a Cyber Monday sale -- 30% off "just about everything". (Wanna cyber?)

Goddammit, Fantagraphics.

haha my thoughts exactly

Well, I'm against anything that might give Johnny Ryan a wider audience

I'm hate-watching "High Fidelity" (2000); one of the record store clerks (the guy who's not Jack Black) is wearing a hella cool L&R t-shirt beneath an unbuttoned flannel.

New book with a Jaime cover: https://i.harperapps.com/covers/9780062476807/y648.jpg

Looks like he took a quick stab at replicating "Death of Speedy"-era Locas, but without much attention to detail (Izzy's legs just look weird).

I went to college with Hillary Chute. FYI

Just checked out her CV – pretty distinguished.

Looks like you guys were in college the exact same years I was... I always like seeing people my age doing interesting stuff. Sometimes I feel like most folks you "hear about" are at least 10 years older or younger.

Goddammit, Fantagraphics

half price sale on gift vouchers this week

Been working my way through the Golden Age of Batman stories, and it's becoming evident how much of an influence Dick Sprang's style was on Gilbert.

This is from Detective #93, published in 1944. Just look at these panels, the way the characters are positioned in the foreground is so Beto.

https://i.imgur.com/svwUBaP.png
https://i.imgur.com/82x9s29.png

I just read a 1985 issue of Legion of Super-Heroes that Joe Orlando pencilled, and it’s striking how much his art (while not very polished) reminds me of Jaime’s... particularly Jaime’s sci-fi/superhero stories. Is it possible Orlando was an influence? Going by his Wikipedia page, it doesn’t look like Orlando did a ton of superhero work (and a lot of what he worked on in that vein seems to have been in the mid-’80s, well after L&R debuted).

It's possible. Orlando drew a bunch of sci fi in his EC days and did some superhero work for DC & Marvel in the 60s.

Picked up most recent 3 issues and jfc Beto’s output has really declined - shaky linework, incoherent plots and dialogue ugh. A bummer. Jaime otoh just gets better and better. Love the return of silly sf material.

I stopped buying Beto collections in volume 3, but I've given up on the series altogether in v4 and am back to waiting for Xaime's collection.

I haven't read any Jaime since Love Bunglers! I probably should

Love Bunglers is what prompted me to get the latest issues tbh, it was so good

I finally started the New Stories. The hour glass figure of Beto's Sad Girl\Killer is disturbing to look at. Jaime's hardly shy with the exaggerated curvy figures either but I don't picture Vivian breaking in half at the waist.

I never read more than a few pages of Beto's stuff prior to finishing all 8 New Stories just now but I couldn't get into any of it. Meanwhile, Jaime was absolutely killing it. His panels are all like perfectly balanced mini-paintings. He captures a lot of fluid body language. People aren't cut-n-paste statues. Jaime's story-telling remains strong as ever. His mini sci-fi "Princess Animus" is pretty damn cool.

Looks like a collection of Jaime’s current “reunion” storyline is coming in March: https://www.amazon.com/This-How-You-See-Countryman/dp/168396182X

Meanwhile — I wasn’t aware that these “Complete Love & Rockets” volumes were still being published; this one seems to collect “Ti-Girls” and “Love Bunglers”: https://www.amazon.com/Angels-Magpies-Love-Rockets-Library/dp/1683960904

(I’m still not clear if the stories about Tonta’s family from “New Stories” have ever been collected; but guess it doesn’t matter, for my purposes...)

Fantagraphics’ mobile website is unusable

Site crashed while trying to calculate the infinite permutations of ways to read the L&R saga.

tbh two days ago a Fanta employee texted me that someone phoned the office wanting to buy "all of Love & Rockets" and I put together an email explaining the closest-to-possible best-format in-print way of doing so

What about the page count of Los Bros
How did it get so high?
I wonder if an ILXor knows how many books to buy

wrong ilxor

You lay claim to the occupation if not the designation itself.

I'd like to see what you told them, sic (unless you already did upthread and I missed it)

At this point, the digests (the Love and Rockets Library, I guess they're called) are pretty much definitive. They're a few years behind at this point but I'm pretty sure they collect everything. Vol. 13 (Angels and Magpies) is the most recent one I own, maybe the last one they put out (nb, I haven't bought them all because I have the entire original set of vol. 1 collections plus the Luba hardcover and a ton of original issues, can only justify so many double- and triple-dips before it just gets ridiculous).

yeah angels and magpies is the most recent one.

also, the digests are the way to go unless you really need to keep up with what they're doing lately.

Do the digests have the same page dimensions as other formats? I've never seen them in the flesh, but had the impression they were somewhat miniaturized(?)

they are smaller than the original (and latest) series, but similarly sized as the "new stories" series... amazon says they are 7.4 x 9.2 inches.