Love
& Rockets (the comic book, not the band... for those who
don't know, the comic came first), is very high on my list of
all-time favorite comics, and one of the single most influential on
my art style and approach to comics. Like a lot of books from this
time period I didn't catch on immediately. My lack of access to a
direct sales comics shop was the primary reason for this. It was only
through the enthusiastic reviews of a couple of friends of mine who
were more adventurous than I that I finally read L&R. I think I
read the first four or five issues in one sitting. I've been a
confirmed fan ever since.
While
it's been on my list of books to write about for this project from
the beginning, I have been hesitant to begin. A lot has been written
and said about Love & Rockets, and I'm not sure what I
have to add to the conversation. L&R by itself is a complex work,
and my own reactions to it are complex as well. Trying to find a
focus for this article has been difficult.
I
have heard Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, the primary creators of L&R,
referred to as “the most important comics creators of their
generation.” This is a generation that includes Frank Miller, Alan
Moore and a host of other significant writers and artists, so that is
a pretty remarkable judgement, and one I don't completely disagree
with. It is not just loved by fans, and they tend to be rabid
supporters, it is one of the most critically acclaimed comics of the
last thirty years.
That
wasn't always so. When the first Fantagraphics issue came out in 1982
a reviewer for Amazing Heroes, R.A. Jones, was less than
receptive. I'll let his words speak for themselves;
So,
Jones seem to think L&R was dated and hopelessly rooted in the
past, when what actually happened was that L&R was the vanguard
of a new generation of comics creators. While thoroughly immersed in
the comics traditions that came before, a much broader spectrum than
the Underground Comix Jones refers to, L&R presented a unique
outlook and voice that has changed the approach to what comics can
be. Rather than a pastiche of a dated past it represented a future
not yet fully understood or comprehended.
The
reasons I feel this way are mixed in with my experiences of reading
the book. But, there are a few things I can say in general. L&R
was post-modern. The Brothers Hernandez (and in the earliest days of
the book, brother Mario contributed as well), threw everything they
knew and loved into their work. Their influences came from the
traditional superhero comics, but they seemed to incorporate
everything they read: Romance comics, Archie comics, Sci-Fi. Their
characters lived in a world where everything that existed in comics
existed. The day-to-day lives of the characters were the normal
stories of people with jobs and families and relationships, but it
was easy to imagine that the Fantastic Four were fighting giant space
monsters just over the horizon, that you could run into Betty and
Veronica at the local fast food joint, or that the neighbor kid was
Dennis the Menace. As a comics fan of their generation who had grown
up devouring all of these it was as if the Hernandez Brothers had
delineated the world I had always lived in in my head, and somehow it
all fit together.
And
it wasn't just comics that served as an inspiration. Anything they
were fans of made its way into the comic. Monster movies, music,
television, and wrestling (particularly the masked luchadore
tradition), all went into the mix.
The
cover of a police lineup of fantasy figures with a real woman in a
housecoat summed this up. It was intriguing and stood out as being
something very different than what we had seen on the racks before.
This drawing by Jaime was inspired by the Punk Rock artist Raymond
Pettibon and his artwork for the back cover of the Black Flag single
Nervous Breakdown.
The
Hernandez Brothers were among the first distinctly Hispanic voices in
comics. They related that cultural heritage in the form of
traditional imagery and folklore handed down to them through older
generations as well as through their own urban experience as Hispanic
youths in America. Their approach was also multicultural. Though most
of the primary point of view characters were of Hispanic origin they
were not the only character types present, especially in Jaime's
work. The Punk Rock culture of Los Angeles that provided the backdrop
for his stories guaranteed that many other races and cultures were
represented as well.
It's
important to me to redefine the term multicultural for my purposes
here. What I mean by Culture in this context goes beyond specific
racial or religious backgrounds. I want to expand the definition to
include any culture or sub-culture one finds oneself a member of, in
this case specifically, Comics as a sub-culture and Punk Rock as a
sub-culture (though there are many others included as well). If I
were to completely simplify the primary themes of Love &
Rockets I would say that it is the continuing story of the
attempt to define oneself, within the strictures of the various
cultures to which you belong and identify with, and against the
expectations they bring with them. A recurring idea is that as
characters grow and age, which they do in this series, they often
become something they never dreamed of in their youth.
While
the cast was large and varied, both Gilbert and Jaime focused on
female point-of-view characters, and both managed to create some of
the most fully-realized women characters in comics. Their
protagonists were real, with a fully human spectrum of emotions,
motivations, strengths and flaws. Unlike the standard, idealized
superheroine form, the women who populated L&R also showed a full
range of body types, and just like real people, their bodies changed
over time.
 |
| Some of the varied female residents of Palomar. |
 |
| Maggie Chascarillo at various points in her life. |
They
were also able to present the reality of human sexuality in ways that
always felt real and not exploitive. There were characters who were
straight, gay and bi-sexual, transvestites and transsexuals the
polyamorous and the chaste. There were characters in committed
relationships and those who were promiscuous. Characters were tempted
and fell in love and fell in lust. Sex was presented as powerful,
life-changing, emotionally messy, romantic, prurient, ridiculous,
embarrassing, hysterical and confusing... just like it is for all of
us in real life. It was a topic that stood on equal footing with
everything else that went on in the characters lives. There are
scenes I'm sure some people would view as pornographic (and the book
is really not meant for kids, for a variety of reasons), but if L&R
is porn, then so is the life of everyone I know.
L&R
can be difficult for a new reader to jump into. Like Marvel and DC,
at this point the L&R universe has a long history. Reading the
latest installment has great meaning for me, but only because I have
watched these characters grow for thirty years. They are old friends
by now, and I know the back story that has brought them to their
current place. If you don't know that back story, it's just events
happening to strangers. Even though the series has been collected in
various formats over the years it's not as simple as saying “Start
at the beginning.” Unfortunately the original format and printing
history can make it difficult to follow, though it has gotten better
than it used to be.
L&R
was originally a magazine-sized black and white comic. It is
important to note, for those of you who have never read it, that its
contents were never simply one big story. L&R was essentially an
anthology featuring separate stories by each of the brothers. Over
time both Gilbert and Jaime developed recurring casts that they
focused on (loosely speaking, the Palomar stories and the
Locas stories, respectively), but they both contributed tales
in each issue that had nothing to do with their longer, continuing
narratives.
It
was obvious in the beginning, like many young creators, that they
were experimenting and had not yet found their voices or their style.
If you pick up the original issues, or read the original trade
paperback collections that presented the issues as they first
appeared, the experience can feel a little choppy and unfocused and
are likely to make the uninitiated wonder what all the fuss is about.
More recent collections have streamlined the experience, collecting each of the brother's main stories separately.
While not as
essential, the lack of side characters like Errata Stigmata and the
adventures of Rocky and Fumble lessens the overall L&R
experience.
 |
| Errata Stigmata |
 |
| That's Rocky and Fumble in the lower right. The central figure is Cheetah Torpedo. |
I'm
pretty sure I haven't done justice to the series. It's difficult to
talk about just why this book has been so important to me. Part of
it, the part that a new reader simply can't experience, is the
concurrent growth of the series with my life. These characters have
been with me for thirty years now. As the circumstances of my life
have changed, as I have grown from a twenty-something to a
fifty-something, these characters have gone through similar changes.
They feel like old friends, friends with whom I have an investment of
time and emotion. I go about my life and they go about theirs, and
once a year or so we get together and get caught up, discovering what
has happened in the meantime, and learning more about each others
journey. To new readers my old friends are simply strangers with an
interesting past. For me, they are people I have shared the road
with, just like real people in my life. There is a difference between
hearing someone's story and feeling like you have shared it.
It's
impossible to talk about L&R without considering the
contributions of Jaime and Gilbert separately. While both are instrumental to the overall feel of the book, they are, in the end, very different
creators. I plan on spending time with both the residents of
Gilbert's Palomar and the cast of Jaime's Locas in the
next couple of posts, reminiscing with these old friends of mine. I
hope I can convey why I love them.
Love
and Rockets and all associated characters are copyright by Gilbert
and Jaime Hernandez.
