The Love And Rockets Companion

The Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years (and Counting) contains three incredibly in-depth and candid interviews with creators Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Hernandez: one conducted by writer Neil Gaiman (Coraline); one conducted some six years into the comic’s run by longtime L&R publisher Gary Groth; and one conducted by the book’s author, spanning Gilbert’s, Jaime’s and Mario’s careers, and looking to the future of the ongoing series, with a follow-up conversation with Groth. This book has foldout family trees for both Gilbert’s Palomar and Jaime’s Locas storylines; unpublished art; a character glossary (which is handy, considering that Gilbert alone has created 50+ characters!); highlights from the original series’ anarchic letters columns; timelines; and the most wide-ranging Hernandez Brothers bibliography ever compiled, including album and DVD covers, posters and more.

Five women stand in a police lineup; four of them are garishly dressed, impressively endowed superwomen ― perfectly normal, because this is, after all, the cover of a comic book. A closer look, however, reveals a fifth woman who seems thoroughly out of place ― mousy, in bathrobe and curlers, smoking a cigarette, she appears to have been suddenly yanked from her breakfast table. Surely, this diminutive, dowdy woman is here by mistake ― or is she? From the very first cover of the very first issue of Love and Rockets in 1982, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez have created artwork that has subverted, contradicted and celebrated the history of the comic book medium, inverting familiar tropes and creating some of the most iconic images in comics over the past three and a half decades, inviting fans and readers into their world. Amazingly, many of the covers created by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez for the various iterations of Love and Rockets over the past 35 years have never been collected or have only been reprinted in black-and-white. Love and Rockets: The Covers will not only rectify this problem, but present them without trade dress (logos, marketing hype, etc.), allowing the original cover illustrations to communicate on their own.

The Love and Rockets Reader: From Hoppers to Palomar started as a series ofblog posts attempting to answer the deceptively simple question: "whatmakes Love and Rockets so great?" Over the next six years, it quickly grewinto a meticulously researched study containing in-depth analysis of andcommentary on the series. Author Marc Sobel delves into the comics'themes, symbols and influences, as well as the Hernandez Brothers'artistic development. Organized into seven main chapters, one for each ofthe first seven Love and Rockets trade paperback collections (representing theoriginal Love and Rockets Vol. I), the book also includes: the comics'origins in the Hernandez Brothers' roots, such as their involvement in theSouthern California punk scene, their adventures in self-publishing, and theirvital partnership with Fantagraphics; an examination of the HernandezBrothers' ill-fated Mister X (a science-fiction series) collaboration; areview of Mario's solo book, Brain Capers; and a paradigm-changinganalysis of Gilbert's vastly underappreciated erotic graphic novel,Birdland. As an "extra," The Love and Rockets Reader also includesJaime's very first published work: the never-before-reprinted four-pagestory, "Another Time, Another Place," from 1977. An essentialresource for scholars and enthusiasts alike, this book will enlighten and deepeneven the most ardent fans' appreciation of this groundbreakingseries.

When Mexican-American rock girl Maggie Chascarrillo and feisty anti-authoritarian punkette Hopey Glass first meet, a turbulent yet enduring relationship is born.

Volumes cover the Hernandez Brothers' work from the first Love & Rockets series, 1982-1996, calendar illustrations from 1989-1993, covers from the series, and hard to find drawings from various publications.

Volumes cover the Hernandez Brothers' work from the first Love & Rockets series, 1982-1996, calendar illustrations from 1989-1993, covers from the series, and hard to find drawings from various publications.

Chance in Hell tells the story about a little orphan girl who lives in the slum of slums. Nobody knows who she is or where she's from, but her fellow shantytown inhabitants collectively look over her. The three-act story follows our heroine as she is adopted by a decent man who raises her well, and she eventually marries a kind, well-to-do man, only to discover that she can't relate to the good life and the comforts it provides. This is the first in a series of standalone stories depicting the fictional filmography of Gilbert's Love and Rockets character, the B-movie actress Fritz.

A deep dive into the first 50 issues of the Hernandez Brothers' acclaimed comic series, this scholarly book seeks to answer the question: What makes Love and Rockets such an enduring classic of the medium?