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Rating: 
Summary: ...post-post-modern, decadent and absurd soap operas...
Review: ....like Betty and Veronica meets Almodovar meets Mad Max these future and past tales from Los Bros Hernandez, Jaime and Gilberto, are both highly entertaining and highly original. Some stories are set in barrios, some in futuristic deserts where denizens ride jet rockets like horses, some in a too realistic village where dreams and reality mesh and couples and not couples mesh. If you're not paying attention, you'll miss something important to the story line. This is how 'Love and Rockets' series first began, and when I was into the various plot twists and story lines I thought that this Los Bros' concept would make a good movie or even TV show...wordless stories of mythic and modern women warriors of Mexican and Spanish descent come right between chapters of a story line involving, for instance, whether Luba's dignity would stay intact after suffering emotional assault from a sister, a lover, the system, the poverty...some of the stories are ludicrous and humourous and others are graphic and real. All of them are full of humanity and bite. The art is Jaime and Gilberto at their Vargas-inspired best...they are equally great artists. You will love this!
Rating:
Summary: ...post-post-modern, decadent and absurd soap operas...
Review: ....like Betty and Veronica meets Almodovar meets Mad Max these future and past tales from Los Bros Hernandez, Jaime and Gilberto, are both highly entertaining and highly original. Some stories are set in barrios, some in futuristic deserts where denizens ride jet rockets like horses, some in a too realistic village where dreams and reality mesh and couples and not couples mesh. If you're not paying attention, you'll miss something important to the story line. This is how 'Love and Rockets' series first began, and when I was into the various plot twists and story lines I thought that this Los Bros' concept would make a good movie or even TV show...wordless stories of mythic and modern women warriors of Mexican and Spanish descent come right between chapters of a story line involving, for instance, whether Luba's dignity would stay intact after suffering emotional assault from a sister, a lover, the system, the poverty...some of the stories are ludicrous and humourous and others are graphic and real. All of them are full of humanity and bite. The art is Jaime and Gilberto at their Vargas-inspired best...they are equally great artists. You will love this!
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated
Review: I'm writing just to warn people not to buy this book!I don't know, people say that Love & Rockets get better after this one... But, in my humble opinion, it does never get any better. And I also bought that Palomar book and I can say this for sure. Sorry guys... I really tried hard to read this book (and it was a great effort from my part) and I still gave up just 8 pages to the end... What's is this? Read something because some "critic" guys told this is the supposed beginning of one of the "best works in the comics medium"? No, no, I gave up, and I should have given up earlier... I really couldn't feel attracted to read, I used to read before sleep, and I used to read only 3 pages a night and get tired... (it's a good medicine for insomnia... and a good torture technique too...). One of the problems with these stories and others in L&R is because there's some deliberate (or maybe no... but let us believe that these artists are good enough to make things deliberate) crudeness everywhere! The crudeness begins with the art! It's hard to get engaged with the visual in these stories and the page style. And the lettering? It isn't well arranged, there's lot of text sometimes (sometimes no text at all), and you feel uncomfortable to read. It's funny also the fact that the guys think that everybody knows spanish expressions!! Or the stories are so interesting that someone would bother to look for them in a dictionary!!! Besides, now I arrived in one of the main problems in L&R... The Brothers Hernandes are supposing every time that people love what they are producing... I mean, when you play with the patience of you reader, or make some non-linear tricks in your stories, or you throw something in the air without further explanation (since it will be clear later - or not... - or there will be some implicit reflective meaning that will be noticed later) you have to make sure that your reader is attracted to your material, that things are very engaging, that your reader will really want to follow the stories to understand things... On the other hand... Who said them that I'm interested? I mean, I begin to read a story because someone said it's interesting... But I didn't even begin to read and I'm not feeling attracted by the visual... then, I don't feel attracted by the beginning of the stories, then I begin to get tired to read, then I begin to hate things... Then, I wouldn't feel any interest to proceed just to see if in the end things get straight in my head, and I begin to see the lights of the story! And I'm sorry... I still really don't know how I achieved the end of that Ben story! It's like to go up a tibetan mountain, just because someone said that you will get 100 dollars!! Well, there are many easy, interesting, attractive, and personal enriching ways to get 100 dollars... I hope you get my meaning. The truth is that there are a lot of more satisfying comic book stories than L&R out there, and the truth is that L&R have been very overrated by "comic book critics".
Rating:
Summary: what can you say?
Review: I've collected the series of these L&R compilations. Jaime and Beto have mended my broken heart with their Heartbreak Soup and filled it with melanchollic wonder. This isn't just some comic book--each frame is a work of art rich in art history, astute literary refs, and beautiful cinematic homages. It's more like watching a movie than reading and I always finish each book ends with a bittersweet sigh. Maggie, Hopey, Luba, and all the folks in Palomar have become more real friends than most of the post-punk slackers I know. Sad but true. Buy 'em all!
Rating:
Summary: what can you say?
Review: I've collected the series of these L&R compilations. Jaime and Beto have mended my broken heart with their Heartbreak Soup and filled it with melanchollic wonder. This isn't just some comic book--each frame is a work of art rich in art history, astute literary refs, and beautiful cinematic homages. It's more like watching a movie than reading and I always finish each book ends with a bittersweet sigh. Maggie, Hopey, Luba, and all the folks in Palomar have become more real friends than most of the post-punk slackers I know. Sad but true. Buy 'em all!
Rating:
Summary: what can you say?
Review: I've collected the series of these L&R compilations. Jaime and Beto have mended my broken heart with their Heartbreak Soup and filled it with melanchollic wonder. This isn't just some comic book--each frame is a work of art rich in art history, astute literary refs, and beautiful cinematic homages. It's more like watching a movie than reading and I always finish each book ends with a bittersweet sigh. Maggie, Hopey, Luba, and all the folks in Palomar have become more real friends than most of the post-punk slackers I know. Sad but true. Buy 'em all!
Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: Okay, first of all: by giving this only 3 stars, I am in no way dismissing Los Bros Hernandez or their remarkable overall achievement. (I hope to eventually get around to reviewing the other 14 volumes in the L&R collection.) It's completely subjective on my part. I got into L&R when Jaime and Gilbert were well into their Hoppers and Palomar worlds, respectively. To me, that's L&R. This first volume, collecting the first two issues, shows the brothers finding their way into their signature themes and styles. There's also a lot of semi-readable sci-fi stuff, mostly from Gilbert, in the form of "BEM." (I should probably go back and re-read that more carefully, just to give it another day in court.) It wasn't long before Los Bros discovered that, yes, Gary Groth was going to support their vision even if it didn't include machines and monsters. As soon as they dropped the pulpy stuff and started hanging out with their thousands (seemingly) of real-world characters, L&R truly became L&R as critics and readers knew and loved it. Still, if you're just getting into L&R, you do have to start here. If only for completeness' sake. If nothing else, it's a trip to see Los Bros' early drawing styles, especially Jaime's (he got a lot slicker as the years went on; Gilbert had a looser style to begin with and got even looser and more expressive; I enjoy both their styles equally). Plus, you do get to meet fan favorites Maggie and Hopey (Jaime) and Luba (Gilbert) here for the first time. I'm just not all that interested in the "Mechanics" stuff (Rand Race was probably the least interesting character Jaime ever put to paper) or Gilbert's "Heavy Metal"-influenced stuff, and I'm definitely one of those readers who thought Maggie got about 1,000 times cooler when she put on weight in the later comics. But that's just my opinion...I could be wrong.
Rating: 
Summary: Los Bros: the early days...
Review: Okay, first of all: by giving this only 3 stars, I am in no way dismissing Los Bros Hernandez or their remarkable overall achievement. (I hope to eventually get around to reviewing the other 14 volumes in the L&R collection.) It's completely subjective on my part. I got into L&R when Jaime and Gilbert were well into their Hoppers and Palomar worlds, respectively. To me, that's L&R. This first volume, collecting the first two issues, shows the brothers finding their way into their signature themes and styles. There's also a lot of semi-readable sci-fi stuff, mostly from Gilbert, in the form of "BEM." (I should probably go back and re-read that more carefully, just to give it another day in court.) It wasn't long before Los Bros discovered that, yes, Gary Groth was going to support their vision even if it didn't include machines and monsters. As soon as they dropped the pulpy stuff and started hanging out with their thousands (seemingly) of real-world characters, L&R truly became L&R as critics and readers knew and loved it. Still, if you're just getting into L&R, you do have to start here. If only for completeness' sake. If nothing else, it's a trip to see Los Bros' early drawing styles, especially Jaime's (he got a lot slicker as the years went on; Gilbert had a looser style to begin with and got even looser and more expressive; I enjoy both their styles equally). Plus, you do get to meet fan favorites Maggie and Hopey (Jaime) and Luba (Gilbert) here for the first time. I'm just not all that interested in the "Mechanics" stuff (Rand Race was probably the least interesting character Jaime ever put to paper) or Gilbert's "Heavy Metal"-influenced stuff, and I'm definitely one of those readers who thought Maggie got about 1,000 times cooler when she put on weight in the later comics. But that's just my opinion...I could be wrong.
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