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17th out of 21 books
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Maggie the Mechanic (Love and Rockets: Locas #1)
Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2007, Love and Rockets will finally be released in its most accessible form yet: as a series of compact, thick, affordable, mass-market volumes that present the whole story in perfect chronological order. The 25th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this, the first of three volumes collecting the adventures of the spu...more
Paperback, 271 pages
Published
March 7th 2007
by Fantagraphics Books
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Jugs & Capes! W00t! Super psyched to be reading Love & Rockets finally.
See this review on CCLaP, where it was originally published.
I'm listening to the band Love & Rockets while I write this review. It seemed only right.
As with so many of the Jugs & Capes books I've been reading and reviewing this year, I knew before I even cracked this one that people have strong opinions about it. And all my research leads me to the same thing: these are early, early storie...more
See this review on CCLaP, where it was originally published.
I'm listening to the band Love & Rockets while I write this review. It seemed only right.
As with so many of the Jugs & Capes books I've been reading and reviewing this year, I knew before I even cracked this one that people have strong opinions about it. And all my research leads me to the same thing: these are early, early storie...more
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The earlier stories in this collection don't feel very focused, but they are still fun, and by the end of this book the world and characters are in sharp relief. Even secondary characters get fleshed out with backgrounds, complex motivations, etc.
Maggie and Hopey are two young women living in Southern California. In many ways their world reflects the real world of the early/mid eighties, when these stories were created. Mexican-American and punk/hardcore elements are most evident....more
Maggie and Hopey are two young women living in Southern California. In many ways their world reflects the real world of the early/mid eighties, when these stories were created. Mexican-American and punk/hardcore elements are most evident....more
This is really a key piece of American literature from the late twentieth century, at least in viewing that literature as a whole that is more than large enough to include the work being done in comics, cartoons, and/or graphic novels (pick your preferred term). Hernandez's Maggie and Hopey stories were always the standout thread in the rich tapestry of Love & Rockets, bringing the earliest stories together in a single volume like this is indispensable for appreciating the breathtaking scope of ...more
Patrick
added it
Reading Love and Rockets has always reminded me of the X-men cartoon from the 90’s, or, more obscurely, The Brown Hornet, the show-within-a-show Fat Albert and his cronies used to watch. Reading it made me feel like I was in someway getting ripped off, taken for a sucker, but in the best possible way. It felt like all the action had just happened in the last issue, and all the characters couldn’t possibly even remotely be understood without reading and buying countless back and future issues. Th...more
I have a much better understanding of why people love Jaime Hernandez's work now. This is an interesting book, with some interesting lumps in its oatmeal-- the early plots are as weak as the characters are strong, and while I understand how Hernandez is trying to build a world that is essentially the sci fi equivalent of magical realism, the sudden invasion of alien assassins in the book combines awkwardly with the ordinary lives of Maggie, Hopey, and friends.
As the stories continue,...more
As the stories continue,...more
The early Hoppers stories are kind of like early Cerebus in that it's a lot different from what will come after, and that it feels like the creator is testing the waters and trying to figure out what works and needed some time to develop his winning formula. And though the early issues are different than the later ones, everything you like in the later ones is here, it's just that there's a lot of other stuff too. The punk rock soap opera element is present, but gets crowded out a bit by the s...more
I have a selection of comics I bought for a Gender in Comics class that I'm taking and everything up until now has been a dud. I loved the art, I loved the language and I loved the characters. Everything is thrown at you at once so it's kind of hard to keep up and the characters change their hair color so often (which is even more difficult since the whole book is in black and white) that I had to re-read certain sections to figure out who characters were, but overall this book was amazing. I lo...more
Wierd mix of 80s punk, sci-fi, 50's style dress/clothes/men women, aliens, wrestlers, latin culture, politics, women doing unusual things. The art was pretty good - pretty clean, and simple black and white. But the plots were pretty random, like you wouldn't ACTUALLY expect things to turn out the way they turned out here. The artist LOVED drawing women's bodies, especially butts!! Definately showed that side more than others lol. But they were pretty nice butts. The faces and hairstyles were oft...more
There are many reviews of this book or of the hardcover that sum up both what's great about Love and Rockets and what's not. I knew going in that the early sections would be a little rough, but I didn't really mind them. There is still a quality to the graphic novel that gives you the confidence to stick with this one to the end. As the Jaime gets better, you start to find yourself empathizing and falling in love with these characters even more. If you've ever liked punk/hardcore, have been ...more
this was my first time reading Jaime (although i've read and loved his brother Gilbert). it was a little off-putting at times. the devices used to move the plot along are fantastical: billionaire's whims, womyn wrestlers, and rocket repair. although the suspension of disbelief is high, it's these elements that make the work interesting. although several of the womyn are strong characters, the illustrations have more of the male gaze than i'm used to seeing. in the end, i'm not converted. b...more
I'd heard about Love & Rockets forever, but was always daunted by how to get into it since there were so many books out and it had such a long history. So I was really glad to discover this newly put together collection that gives each of the major story lines in an easy to read sequential format. That said, I realized once I started reading that I really had no idea what I was in for. I guess I was expecting something much more punk rock, and instead I discovered a surprisingly sweet, and stran...more
The Locas series (which this and two other books encompass) is a soap in Comic Form, primarily following two girls as they have various adventures that range from Sci-Fi insanity, to Punk Rock mythologies. The stories appeared in the book Love & Rockets, along-side work by his brother, who's stories were centered around a village called Palomar. In a way, you need both to really absorb either story, but reading Locas in three-volumes, all at once is also extremely rewarding.
I wil...more
I wil...more
When I decided that it was finally time to tackle Love and Rockets, which had always seemed so overwhelming, I was relieved to find that Fantagraphics had released these nice collections (as well as publishing a useful “How to Read Love and Rockets” guide on their website). It took me a while to get into this volume, the first collecting Jaime Hernandez’s “Locas” stories. The first few stories, in which the author seems to be still finding his feet, were entertaining but didn’t really draw me i...more
Apparently this collection of the first 25 years of the cult-classic "Maggie the Mechanic" comic is the "punkiest, most heavily sci-fi"of Jaime Hernandez's work. I liked the punk and ahd trouble with the sci-fi. But I'm working on it. This was a good education. Dinosaurs, rockets, hover crafts, Zymbodia, super heroes, robots, lesbians, wrestlers, and oh, Penny Century. Not sorry I read it, even though I have no idea what was happening for most of the time I was reading.
I recently discovered the Love and Rockets series and have been quickly reading everything I can find. I read this after its sequel, the Girl from HOPPERS, and was a little disappointed by all the science fiction stories (luckily these seem to be dropped after this volume). Jaime Hernandez really excels with the little dramas of the life of the "locas," and I found myself wanting to skip past the stories about dinosaurs and such. Still, really excellent volume.
The first compilation of work from Jaime Hernandez, Beto's brother (or vice versa), co-presiding spirit of the Love & Rockets comics. I have a slight preference for Beto's tales of Palomar, but reading this shortly after B's collection Human Diastrophism made me aware that the real brilliance of L&R was in the juxtaposition of the two hermanos work. One of the great things about L&R is the way it places groups of women at the center of the story and then lets them interact and age in realistic...more
Ootah!
This is my first encounter with the Love & Rockets series. At first I was lightly disappointed by the weak stories, but the great character development, and the AMAZING artwork make up for the initial, uninspired plots. "Las Mujeres Perdidas" is probably the best in here, and Hopey and Maggie are the most endearing characters i've found in a while. Hernandez's depictions of facial expressions and body postures are full of energy and movement. Looking forward to read The Gir...more
This is my first encounter with the Love & Rockets series. At first I was lightly disappointed by the weak stories, but the great character development, and the AMAZING artwork make up for the initial, uninspired plots. "Las Mujeres Perdidas" is probably the best in here, and Hopey and Maggie are the most endearing characters i've found in a while. Hernandez's depictions of facial expressions and body postures are full of energy and movement. Looking forward to read The Gir...more
most over-rated comic book series ever. while the drawings are good, the writing is absurdly flat. yeah, the girls are cute chicana punk rockers and they're are all kinds of appealing references to bands and movies and stuff, but there's zero psychological depth in the dialogue and you're not ever really given a reason to care about the characters. furthermore, i find the lesbian subtext hokey and not at all believable, as if making the two main characters sleep naked together in the same bed wa...more
While reading these stories, I was struck by the fact that the Hernandez brothers, the creators of this amazing melange of punk rock, science fiction, Chicano/Catholic culture, and many other influences---including the lower-case-c catholic reading habits of literary omnivores--drew and wrote most of these stories in the early eighties, when I was younger reader and when they would have had much greater appeal for me; I can't say they don't appeal to me now--and in any case, I like to fancy myse...more
I'm madly in love with just about everything about Jaime Hernandez's Locas series from Love and Rockets. I will go so far as to say it's the best largely unnoticed American fiction out there.
Latin@ comic books, science fiction, and ambiguous queerness - I'm so there. Unfortunately it was a little hokey for me, but I did enjoy these themes.
One story drags a little but over all what you'd expect in the great adventures of Hopey and Maggie crew.
So far I don't think much of Love and Rockets. Nothing has grabbed me about this at all. I'll start back up on it again when I'm bored. Right now I've got too many books to read that I know I'll like to trudge through this.
Beautifully drawn. Dynamic characters. I wasn't into the sci-fi/adventure stuff as much as the everyday kind of stories but I think they were really well balanced.
mis amores = maggie y hopey!!!!!!!!!
Too young before; now, I love 'em.
So far Jaime's "Maggie And Hopey" stories are a disappointment compared to Palomar. The sci-fi and punk elements feel like window dressing, and so far I don't feel like the characters have their own personalities. Maggie and Hopey occasionally seem interchangeable, and their army of hangers-on feel are shallowly defined stereotypes. Hope it gets better, because I already bought the next two volumes based on how much I enjoyed the Palomar series.
Oh, Maggie became my hero the minute I laid eyes on her. I started L&R in the middle, but now that Fantagraphics has released this wonderful collection in the new, easy-to-read format (segregating Jaime's stories from Beto's), I have been able to find out her adventurous backstory. Let me tell you, the girl is amazing. Jaime's work speaks for itself-- he's one of the best cartoonists of our time.
There is nothing that needs be said or added about this book. "Love and Rockets" as a grand narrative is absolutely indispensable reading, and though the early Locas stories are a bit strange, they're ultimately as endearing as the later, more verite stories and serve as a perfect time capsule of the second wave of indie comics in the eighties.
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