I recently found this magazine sized comic book second hand for a
very affordable price, and it is the first time I've had the chance
to read anything by Los Brothers Hernandez. The three brothers
Gilbert, Jaime and Mario grew up in making comics in Southern
California, and at some point in the early 1980s the oldest one Mario
decided that his brothers were making comics too good to remain
unpublished. They set up Love and Rockets as an anthology
publication, featuring works by each of the three brothers, and self
released the first issue before being picked up by Fantagraphics.
The book at hand collects the first two issues from 1981/1982 under
the title "Music For Mechanics", although that title isn't visible
anywhere on my copy. Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez deliver the majority
of the stories here, Mario is only featured with one story. Being the
first time I read Love and Rockets, I feel like I get thrown into a
fully developed world which I need to get to know before being able
to take it all in. There are references to the SoCal punk scene and
bands mixed with space ships, giant monsters, all with an emphasis on
friendship and slapstick humor. The stories seem to start in medias
res, and often end just as abruptly. They are mostly quite short,
often between one and ten pages long.
The longest story in the book, Mechanics by Jaime Hernandez, is what
really let me into the Love and Rockets universe. We follow the
mechanic Maggie as she travels to a distant jungle in a faraway
country named Zimbodya to rescue a decrepit wreck of a rocket ship.
She writes letters home to her friends, describing her meetings with
dinosaurs, sleazy men, a female wrestling hero (and revolutionary)
and the friendly locals. The artwork is stunningly precise and
expressive, and the writing is smart and propulsive.
Seeing as the Hernandez Brothers are still active more than 40 years
later, and the series has been going on and off for all that time, I
have a lot more to delve into. Greatly looking forward to it.
