As the summary on the back cover of this collection attests, "in the third issue of Love and Rockets, Gilbert Hernandez abruptly jettisoned his Marvel and Heavy Metal-influenced sci-fi yarns to focus on the day to day tribulations of a tiny Central American hamlet more or less untouched by time--Palomar." Mr. Hernandez gives his readers a clue to this transition in the story "Love Bites." As the story opens, Heraclio begs his lover Carmen not to destroy his copy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which has displaced her in his attention and, presumably, affection.

It seems to me quite clear that Beto Hernandez (as his fans know him) fell under the sway of Latin American magical realism in general and Mr. Marquez in particular. Like other stories in the huge Love and Rockets saga, these are simply brilliant: extremely well written and drawn with lavish beauty. If there weren't strong sexual undercurrents running through these stories, I would use them in the classroom.

My only criticism of this, such as it is, if of myself and my occasionally out-of-sync reading habits. I read One Hundred Years of Solitude at age 17 while a senior in high school; frankly, I failed utterly to understand it, and have it marked for an encore. Like the stories in Beto's earlier collection, Maggie the Mechanic, these were written and published in the early eighties, when I had much stronger eyes and would have more greatly appreciated the energy and raw beauty of these stories.