Love & Rockets - classic or dud

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.

(There have been two Jaime trade collections since Love Bunglers)

Crikey! I need to get a wriggle on...

Maggie is my #1 comic crush, so any time with her is good.

The Maggie/Hopey duality reminds me, appropriately, of the Betty/Veronica divide.

#teamhopey

Middle aged Hopey has mellowed a lot

Shit, middle aged me has mellowed a lot.

I don't really "like" middle-aged Hopey, as a person (and I have a sense/recollection that Jaime doesn't, either)

Love Bunglers is so good, but This How You See Me might be even better imo

Not there's any need to choose!

The whole "actually $400 is highly reasonable" line of throught is making me reevaluate my previously held "no way!" position

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.

me too -- quite possibly on your recommendation! -- are the drm free versions still accessible? would much rather read on chunky

to download you need to go here (your uk account is valid even though it's .com)
http://amazon.com/comixology/account

hit the "View your Comixology books" link at the bottom and then the "Backup" tab.

the main site is here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/comixology/

awesome thank you!

guys this is dumb

like you can buy all of this content in the form of L&R Library tpbs for less than $100, it’s in a diff order and slightly smaller but I cannot imagine that the original order + slightly bigger is worth an extra $300

The letter columns alone are worth $400

Ha, I don't think "But you're buying exactly the same thing in a different format!!!" is a water-holding argument for comics types

I don’t know if I could put a dollar value on it, but full size is a big deal. Just compare the (small) New Stories volumes to the larger-format trade reprints of the same material.

Crikey! I need to get a wriggle on...

Stevie: here are the two post-Love-Bunglers Xaime HCs:

Is This How You See Me?
Tonta

- these are material that overlapped with each other in the issues, and with Love Bunglers, and with another lite-SF-adventure series that Jaime has on the go these days.

Facsimile editions of the L&R issues themselves probably still the best way to read this material imho, where the separate worlds are rubbing up against each other rather than kept apart.

― Ward Fowler, Monday, March 28, 2022 11:42 PM (one week ago)

I wouldn't say best - if nothing else, the expanded Poison River is a massive upgrade to that story, and it's easier to track the timeline in book form - but having read the Complete/Collection books first, it's definitely both fascinating and enlightening to see the way they piecemealed out the stories, and get a better impression of how much they were working on the fly and reacting to other things in the world or in comics.

And yeah, you get no idea in the books the various ways they play off each other - grabbing a topic or theme or character from the other Bro's work and riffing on it. Izzy appearing as a Poison River background extra in the same issue as she's in Mexico for Flies On The Ceiling! Plus the non-Locas and non-Palomarverse shorts & series feel more essential in situ, letting each artist play out ideas that don't fit in their ongoing work, or the way Beto takes months out from his regular characters to retrench between novels.

hm ok damn now I want to re-read L&R in like original comic book/Collection form and see what it's like