Love & Rockets - classic or dud

I feel like this vaguely rips off the comic’s title & original logo (or maybe it’s just a coincidence):

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/LoveAndMonstersPoster.jpeg

More likely a rip of the 2006 Dr Who episode Love & Monsters

Given the art style and the fact he's called "BEM", could this be the secret origin of Los Bros Hernandez?

"BEM" is an old sci-fi acronym for "bug-eyed monster". Presumably that's where Gilbert got it from, since, you know, he uses it as a name for a sci-fi monster. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug-eyed_monster

https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/queen-of-the-ring-wrestling-drawings-by-jaime-hernadez (sic)

This best-of book spotlights the women who are often ignored in pro wrestling in 125 full color illustrations: pin-ups, action shots, fake wrestling magazine covers, all presented in a large paperback format that echoes the lucha libre magazines of the 1960s. Hernandez also discusses the work in an interview with fellow cartoonist Katie Skelly.

Just learned Jaime did a poster for that band that adopted his character name:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v_ivFcMEk8I/WzJIdbK94gI/AAAAAAAAuFo/WOjc8YrDzTMVsjwWYxKmCk9WQ9216bM6QCLcBGAs/s1600/unnamed%2B%25281%2529.jpg

always wondered if he was involved with that / approved it

Def remember Los Bros were none too happy abt the UK group Love & Rockets, understandably so

If I were a curious new L&R reader who clicked on this "handy guide" to the series (which Fanta just promoted in today's newsletter), I would probably close my browser and forget about being an L&R reader!

(I guess the core Where to Start With Love and Rockets sections (for Jaime and Gilbert, respectively) of this page are better, but the impact of the entire page is arguably even more off-putting.)

One little side note, which I also mentioned on things you were shockingly old when you realized, Speedy Ortiz more or less rhymes with Sadie Dupuis.

it's fucking hard to get people into l&r these days and it's also hard to lend out the books because if you walk with my v1 of anything, it will be the sixth copy i've lost that way!

lol, yeah, Fanta's reader's guide is insane. Just list the digests and then have a 'wanna know more?' link to the full publication history.

I binged L&R during the shutdown. Jaime stayed remarkably consistent. Berto lost me when he left Palomar. Eventually it turned into a comic obsessed with huge breasted women in LA.

kinda with you there. i like his more gonzo shit. Blubber is impressively unhinged.

Blubber is completely unhinged.

I do like his experimental, gonzo stuff but generally, yeah, it's safe to stop with the Palomar material when it no longer takes place in Palomar. Before that, though, he and Jaime's worlds were just about equal imo.

don't sleep on the "New Tales Of Old Palomar" standalones though, those are good

yeah i'd agree with that

Grandfathered in on the 'tales place in Palomar' clause.

tales takes

I stopped with Gilbert's second B-movie graphic novel because I felt his art has lost some of its oomph and weight but I'm tempted to get the Blubber collection. I admired Palomar and some of his later stories were very sad but ultimately I wasn't into it enough once the drawing declined a bit.

I haven't read a graphic novel over 60 pages in 5 years or something like that.

(Moving over from the rolling comix thread)

This looks beautiful, and of course I’m sort of tempted, but no way can I justify $400 for content I already have in other format(s):

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0322/7339/9944/products/9781683965541_800_1080x.jpg?v=1647543431

Oh jeez, that looks very nice

It does look great. But it's only collecting volume one? At that price point, I figured it was the whole shebang.

Considering how all over the place they have printed their material, it is kind of interesting to do something like this.

I've had the first three original reprint trades from the 80s. They were among the few things I kept out of my original collection.

It does look great. But it's only collecting volume one? At that price point, I figured it was the whole shebang.

2 quick q’s, don’t think just answer:

how many pp is your mental whole shebang box?

what was the price point of buying volume one in book form in 1997 (which, I regret to inform us all, was 25 years ago)?

They'd have to do the other volumes as separate sets because they are rized differently

xpost
I don't know why collecting the whole shebang would be that much more mental than just collecting volume 1. The complete set across the room from me doesn't occupy that much shelf space. It's gonna be a big beautiful unwieldy beast either which way.

And I've probably spent $400 on volume one but only because I've bought it twice over.

This isn't grousing, btw. If anyone deserves to get paid it's Los Bros.

$400 is a lot of scratch and this stuff's been reprinted so many times at this point. I'm just thankful the cheaper PBs are available

what was the price point of buying volume one in book form in 1997 (which, I regret to inform us all, was 25 years ago)?

This made me curious (incidentally, I'm all too aware of the 25-year milestone, as it's the year I graduated college!)

There were 15 books of trades collecting Vol. 1 (Music for Mechanics thru Hernandez Satyricon), with cover prices ranging from $12.95 to $14.95 (I stopped buying the trades w/Wigwam Bam, so can't check the prices of the last few). Let's say $20 each (incl. tax), assuming they were all still in print = $300 (1997 dollas) = $530 (2022 dollas). So with allowances for my fuzzy math, this new edition is on par or even a "steal"?

(Of course it’s not apples to apples, as they’re repros of the original books, and you don’t get the additions to “100 Rooms,” etc. But you do get a big essay in the final volume!)

(I guess I also shouldn't have bumped the prices of the 1997 books all the way up to $20 - as it's not like tax & shipping are included in the $400 price for the new set. Let's stick with $15 each x 15 = $225 (1997) = $398 (2022)!)

I don't know why collecting the whole shebang would be that much more mental than just collecting volume 1.

For one thing, the title “The First Fifty” would be pretty mental to put on a book containing The First One Hundred And Forty-Seven.

When you consider how many of those later issues and volumes are 96pp without covers, and then realize that facsimile editions of the b-movie hardcovers would involve binding multiple hardcover books inside larger hardcover books, you’re probably going to require reinforced steel for the slipcase - and the cost of shipping books just made out of paper has quadrupled in the last year.

Not to mention, as Moodles noted, that come 2007 you’re binding 8” hardcovers and 8.5” comic books inside the same 11” hardcover books as 11.5” magazines. I’m no physicist, but I can foresee at least one potential complication.

There’s also no “whole shebang” yet, the series is still going

I also maintain at the individual trades (which I resumed buying with Whoa Nellie! are the best way to read it. The problem is that all the early ones are OOP, I think

I'm strongly thinking of buying this. It's very expensive, but I've been reading this on and off since the 80s, I own maybe ¼ of the original run and would love to read it all in its original format instead of rejiggered into tpb form. It would be great if they did something similar with vol 2.

Threw a spreadsheet together to check morris’ maths (except aHEM, is your name Old Lunch, young man???!) and I get: buying the hardcovers from 1985-1997: $525 ($540 if you didn’t start until the Complete Love & Rockets editions). Buying the paperbacks from 1985: $209 if you stick with the EP version of X. Buying in-print paperbacks in the late ‘90s: over $270.

($540 1997 = $962 today. And that’s without a slipcase, color covers, letters pages, sketchbooks, dozens of essays, interviews and press clippings, restored versions of some pages, never-collected original versions of stories, 100+ pages of bonus comics (some never reprinted, some not for thirty years), and possibly an entire separate book with densely-illustrated annotations for every story from the fifty main issues. Not suggesting that anyone should buy it if they’re not interested, and I certainly couldn’t afford it, but morris’ estimate of on par or even a "steal"? seems reasonable imo!)

rejiggered into tpb form

Rejg’d/Rejugged (Pronounced “ReJigged”)

Now that's something else entirely

lols

For one thing, the title “The First Fifty” would be pretty mental to put on a book containing The First One Hundred And Forty-Seven.

I wasn't onboard at first but u finally sold me with this salient point.

I loved Jaime's early stuff, certainly up through "The Death of Speedy." I kind of dropped it for no other reason than life got in the way. I feel like I'd be hopelessly behind now.

if you want to crank through Jaime's stuff, the TPBs make it pretty manageable

Yeah, I may give it a go, although the aging of the characters really reminds me of how old I've become.

as mentioned elsewhere it was all going for a song on comixology(uk) before amazon messed that all up. luckily it's drm free so downloadable and readable anywhere. grabbed the first 14 tpbs for about £20.

Jaime is pretty consistent up through the last trade. It moved in a super hero direction that I wasn’t nuts about, but it ended really nicely. Maggie is my #1 comic crush, so any time with her is good.

The span of the Library editions means that “the superhero direction” was only in two issues of the comic, 14 years ago (and Jaime followed it with his greatest down-to-earth novel ever).

Is the Hoppers series still ongoing? I think Love Bunglers was the last I read.

I finally got a Love & Rockets tee a few montsh back - with the cover of the issue with the band onstage - and I treasure it.

xp

yes it is, in volume 4, which is a return to the large size format of the original run. There's been about 11 issues so far.