Kossori's NewswireKossori's NewswireWelcome to Kossori's Newsfile. I bet you guys thought you'd never see me again. Well... I'm back. This will be the beginning of my regular feature. I'm shooting for bi-weekly. What follows is my (slightly unbiased) view of the current goings-ons in the world of comics. I would like to, again, thank Dave for the space he's giving me to write all this up. I know he's been waiting anxiously (is that the word?) for my return... Okay, now on to the news...
The original series, which featured different stories by the brothers (Gilbert, Jaime and Mario), had an impressive fifty issue run. Following its last issue, it branched out into seperate titles, each by a different brother, starring his own cast of characters.
Recently, they have brought the Love and Rockets title back with the original concept. The new series has each brother contributing a new story each issue. (It's currently on #3 and ships quarterly). Meanwhile, Jaime continues working on Penny Century and Gilbert does Luba (both spin-offs from the original Love and Rockets).
Almost all of the Love and Rockets stories have been reprinted in trade paperback and can be back-ordered at your neighborhood comic shop (that would be Dave!).
The Complete Love and Rockets list:1- Music for Mechanics (Vintage Hernandez Brothers, includes the first two issues of Love & Rockets, with the debuts of Maggie and Hopey, Jaime's classic "Mechanics," plus Gilbert's pre-Palomar work like epic super-hero story "BEM" and Music for Monsters.")2- Chelo's Burden (Reprints #3 containing Gilbert's first epic of Palomar, "Heartbreak Soup," & Jaime's classic "100 Rooms," plus six new pages for this volume.) 3- Las Mujeres Perdidas (Contains "Lost Women," Jaime's sprawling story of Maggie and wrestling champ Rena Titanon; plus Gilbert's "Act of Contrition," and an Errata Stigmata appearance.)4- Tears from Heaven (Contains Gilbert's "The Reticent Heart," "Ecce Homo," and the longest Errata Stigmata story; plus Jaime's "Penny Century on the Road," "Retro Rocky," and the unforgetable "graffiti story" starring Hopey and Izzy.)5- House of Raging Women (A special wrestling volume with Maggie and Rena Titanon, plus Gilbert's "An American in Palomar," "Love Bites," and "Holiday's in the Sun.")6- Duck Feet (Features Gilbert's most supernatural and terrifying Palomar story, "Duck Feet" alongside one of his most sweetest and most poignant, "Love Bites; Jaime delves into Maggie and Hopey's past.) 7- The Death of Speedy (A solo Jaime book featuring the moving title story. Hopey's band goes on tour in "Jerusalem Crickets," and Maggie goes on the wrestling circuit "In the Valley of the Polar Bears.")8- Blood of Palomar (An all-Gilbert book showcasing "Human Diastrophism," one of the most ambitious stories ever told in comics.)9- Flies on the Ceiling(Jaime's title story follows Izzy's journey to Mexico after her abortion while his "Ninety-Three Million Miles From the Sun" shows Penny at her wackiest and raunchist; plus Gilbert's comic-book biography of Frida Kahlo, "A Folktale" about the devil.)10- Love and Rockets X (Gilbert takes the reader from Beverly Hills to the dangerous east side of LA - a superb portrait of a city in decline.)11- Wigwam Bam (Jaime's definitive statement on the post-punk culture. Las Locas prowl from Los Angeles to the East Coast trying to recapture the carefree spirit of those early days.)12- Poison River (Gilbert's revised and expanded Godfather-like epic adds nearly 50 new pages, tracing Luba's early life and introducing a number of characters that appear in later issues of L&R.)13- Chester Square (Chronicles Maggie's turbulent life from the end of "Wigwam Bam" through "Bob Richardson.")14- Luba Conquers the World (Features the final group of "Palomar" stories from #41-#50, with some new pages of comics added in.)15- Hernandez Satyricon (Collects the "unclassifiable" stuff from the last three years (including the stories in which Jaime and Gilbert drew each other's characters), plus lots of hard-to-find stories, illustrations, special features, and more!)16- Whoa Nellie! (Collects the three-issue series and includes six all-new pages, bringing to the forefront the female wrestling milieu that only peppered the background Jaime's Love & Rockets storylines.)17- Fear of Comics (Collects for the first time the very best of Gilbert Hernandez's short fiction from the pages of his New Love comic book series as well as the extremely rare Mr. X series, which first saw print in periodical form over ten years ago and are highly collectible today.)18- Locas In Love (Penny Century is the title of Jaime Hernandez's current ongoing comic book series and Locas in Love is the first collection, spotlighting the first four issues of the series.)
If you get a chance to check it out, the "Ten Years of Love and Rockets" book that came out around the 10th anniversary is a real good introduction to the series. It has short strips that feature the most popular characters, as well as a list of all the important characters and their place in the stories. It also has an interview with both Jaime and Gilbert detailing how they do their work.
Check out this interview with the Hernandez Brothers from February.
A couple of other little things... A fan-made chronology of Jaime's stories, ends around 1995, though. And another (really old) interview.
