Love And Rockets ~ Week 12

For this week we were asked to read comics about women or by women. I decided to read love and Rockets for this assignment. Love & Rockets is a comic book series by Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez; sometimes their other brother Mario Hernandez would be in the process. 

The first issue of Love & Rockets was self-published by the

brothers in 1981, but in 1982 it has been published by Fantagraphics Books. The Love & Rockets Volume 2, magazine was temporarily stopped its publication in 1996. However in 2001 Los Bros revived the series as Love & Rockets have several ongoing serial narratives. The most prominent being Gilbert's Palomar stories and Jaime's Hoppers 13 stories. It also contains one-offs, shorter stories, surrealist jokes, and more.

In Palomar it tells a story of a fictional village in Latin America and its inhabitants.  It has vibrant characters and fantastic events.

Hoppers 13 follows the story of the tangled loves of a group of characters, from their teenage years in the early days of the California punk scene to the present day. The two memorable

members of Jaime’s cast are “Maggie” and “Hopey”, whose on-again, off-again romance id a focus for many of the storylines.

The brothers like to play with passage of time in a relatively realistic manner. For example in Jaime’s Hoppers 13, Maggie's character, a pro-solar mechanic, debuted as a slight yet curvy young adult living in a world both distinctly chicano and punk with a sci-fi twist. As she develops in more detail, she started to gain weight slowly. Over the years, Maggie and the other characters have evolved, growing more layered and complex as their stories develop. The present Maggie, who now wears her hair bleached blonde and has a penchant for wearing sexy bathing suits,

is the manager of an apartment complex. Jaime has also made extensive use of flashbacks, with Maggie and the others presented at different ages from toddlers through teenagers and young adults to thirty-something’s.

The brothers have two very different styles. Gilbert’s style is rougher, but you can still see what is happening in storyline. He also uses a lot more type and text in this work. Jaime’s style is more clean cut and tight then his brother. That is really the only differences between the two brothers besides the stories being completely different.