3 posts tagged “fantagraphics books”
Third Time the charm? I’d written in an earlier (much earlier) post about how Love and Rockets had been reborn as a comic after the magazine format publication ended with issue #50. What I DIDN’T know was that the COMIC was soon to fall, too, and without fanfare, I was to find (through my local comics dealer) that L&R had been put on hiatus again! ARGH!
Hope came when I was browsing through the Fantagraphics homepage, and saw an announcement that the Hernandez Brothers would be returning in the near future, this time in the Trade Paperback format! First Magazine format, then Comic format, and now, the collector’s choice of cataloging, the TPB, or Graphic Novel, if you will! That sounded promising!
I was down at the Comic store a few weeks ago to pick up the latest Usagi Yojimbo Trade Paperback (Tomoe’s Story, for those who are curious) and was happily informed that the new Love and Rockets would be arriving in weeks! YES!
Ran in to the store just this morning, and was handed a beautiful new book, and, why, Penny Century was on the cover- WE WERE OFF TO A GREAT START! But what about the stories inside?
Well, when we last left off, Maggie had just realized she had a super-heroine living in her apartment complex, and Jaime starts his new Locas venture by creating a new Super-team for Alarma to belong to, and he’s revived all his one-shot super gals of Love and Rockets past to fill in the spots, characters such as Cheetah Torpeda, Mini Rivero, Rocky, and…Xochitl!
Beto, meanwhile, pulls double duty here, giving us a new “Julio’s Day” entry as well as illustrating the latest Mario script, a decidedly wacky tale called Chiro El Indio! Oh, and the book’s chock filled with those zany “Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies” type zingers Beto’s famous for, with those depression-era looking cartoon critters in the most eccentric of strips!
I’m not sure just how often this Graphic Novel version of Love and Rockets is going to be released. The Fantagraphics Books site claims it is an “Annual”, and hints that it may be a one-shot, but the spine and cover of the book says number “#1”, which gives me hope that they intend to follow it with #2, #3, etc. But I really can’t complain- I’ve just been reading over 100 pages of brand-new Hernandez Brothers stories, and that will definitely do for now!
I guess It’s about time I started tossing in a few of Comics’ lovely women civilians, and a smooth transition might be to feature Jaime Hernandez’s Penny Century, the regular gal whose one sole wish is to BECOME a real-life Super-Heroine!
Born Beatriz Garcia, Penny Century is one of the Love and Rockets characters that Jaime has constantly been fleshing out, so much that she has gone from being a one–dimensional bubble-headed blonde to one of Love and Rockets more endearing characters.
Although probably the finest Penny Century Story is the classic “Bay Of Threes” issue (where we finally get the back story of how Penny grew up and married Tycoon H.R. Costigan), the story that had us all howling and rolling on the floor with laughter has to be “Ninety-three Million Miles from the Sun”, when Ray and Maggie were invited to stay at Penny’s house. They are thrust into the world of Penny Century where the heiress spends the day dressing up like a super-heroine, duking it out with paid actors dressed as villains, and hitting on Ray mercilessly! This was the height of her loopiness, and she would slowly be tamed down and brought back to earth.
Penny Century
by Jaime Hernandez
[Love and Rockets]
Back in 1985, I came across a magazine called “Love and Rockets”, which interested me because it featured these punky California chicks who were into the same kind of scene that me and my friends were into- listening to punk/new wave music and going to see bands in clubs. They even were the same AGE as me and my friends-just outta high school and not knowing what the heck they wanted to do with their lives.
The magazine was written and illustrated by the Hernandez Brothers Jaime and Beto. The layout of the mag was sort of divided into two parts- Beto did a more Mexican folklore/gangland kind of story, while Jaime did one called LOCAS, featuring the aforementioned teenage girls. Although I loved Beto’s work too, it’s Jaime’s work I became obsessed about.
The six characters were so intriguing, and even the supporting cast was given space to grow. Jaime told his stories as one long, continuous linear story, so it really made you feel like you were reading a story about real people.
It roughly followed the exploits of Maggie and her best friend Hopey, their friends Izzy, Penny, Daffy (a Japanese chick!) and Terry. In time, they would blossom into these fully developed characters that you felt you knew like the back of your hand. They were so interesting that I regularly changed who my favorite character was every time a new story came out! . I remember plastering a poster of Locas on my locker at college and even had a sticker of Daffy’s cute sister Nami stuck on the bumper of my car! (Remember that one, guys?)
Anyway, time moved on, and college came and went, and I was now busy working in the real world and hadn’t read a L&R magazine for several years…
I remember around 1991, picking up the latest issue of Love and Rockets, and noting with admiration that the characters had grown up along with me. They were not the same teenagers I had read in college. They were the SAME AGE AS ME, and had even moved onto different music and interests, as did I!
It really amazed me, thinking how much they really were like real people. They had changed so much, and it was in a realistic way. Hopey’s punky girl hair had grown out, and Maggie had gained considerable weight since I saw her last! I made it my goal to find every back-issue I’d missed over the years to catch up with the LOCAS gang…and it was as good as ever. Everyone had developed so well, and I found out that Maggie and Hopey had grown apart as friends, another very realistic touch, I think. Younger brothers and sisters had grown up, too, and
even grouchy old Tita Vicki had become a sympathetic character.
I faithfully collected the Magazine from then on, until it ended in 1996.It bummed me out- it came at a time when the magazine was at its zenith, too-every story in it was so damn good, especially Beto’s spooky Mexican themed ones, and the ending Locas story “Bob Richardson”, where we see everyone had grown up. Several characters even get married at the end. This ending left a huge void in my life comic-wise!
But things were all good, because in due time the Brothers Hernandez came back with comic-sized versions of their L&R characters in titles like PENNY CENTURY and LUBA. The best was yet to come, though, for in 2000, they reunited and came back with a revamped comic entitled-what else? - LOVE AND ROCKETS! Yay! Things were great again!
Reading the latest issue of L&R, I was once again taken aback. I couldn’t believe it, but Maggie and friends were STILL the same age as me! One character even notes that Maggie isn’t a punky girl anymore-she’s a 40-year old landlady now.
Heck, even Hopey has grown up and is a preschool teacher’s assistant!
Maggie brushes into her one-time boyfriend Ray where they realize they’ve aged.
Hopey finds out her ex-band member Terry Downe, once a fellow struggling musician, has become a very successful performer…so successful, Hopey can’t get backstage to see her!
Everyone has walked down a different path to end up where they are-and we were there right alongside them!
I think that part of the reason Jaime can do this is because any time he feels like drawing a story with them younger (or at any age), he simply tells a “flashback” story, and they can be any age he wants. He frequently tells stories of the characters as children growing up in the Barrio, as well as middle school adolescence, and “This is what was happening when this other story you read was happening” type of stories.
How amazing is that? They’re still growing up with me. I think this is just incredible for a comic to do.
Viva Love and Rockets!
