Amor Y Cohetes

To a great extent, Love and Rockets is synonymous with Hoppers and Palomar... but there was always more to L&R than that. Amor Y Cohetes finally collects together in one convenient package all the non-Maggie and non-Palomar stories by all three Hernandez Brothers from that classic first, 50-issue Love and Rockets series -- a dizzying array of styles and approaches that re-confirms these groundbreaking cartoonists' place in the history of comics. The book leads off with Gilbert's original 40-page sci-fi epic "BEM" from 1981's very first issue of Love and Rockets, featuring a very different Luba and a much looser, Heavy Metal- and Marvel Comics-inspired way of storytelling. Other stories include Jaime's charming "Rocky and Fumble" series starring a planet-hopping girl and her robot; stunning one-shots such as Gilbert's Frida Kahlo biography "Frida" and his shocking autobiographical fantasia "My Love Book"; Mario's genre thrillers which take place "Somewhere in California"; Gilbert's brutally dystopian "Errata Stigmata" stories; the playful "Hernandez Satyricon," with Gilbert drawing Jaime's characters, and "War Paint," with Jaime trying out Palomar; Gilbert's light-hearted "Music for Monsters" starring Bang and Inez; and even a fantastical "non-continuity" Maggie and Hopey story "Easter Hunt" by Jaime that didn't fit into the other books.

"At an age when artists tend to have settled into refining a successful approach, the Hernandez Brothers are challenging themselves as much as they did a quarter-- century ago, and it's a joy to see them freaking out." --The New York Times