![]() ![]() ![]() Their domestic lives appear to be the only things of any consequence. Who’s screwing who gets to be a little tired. While it’s certainly a depiction of a matriarchal society, it’s also a fantasy of matriarchy-where women, especially young nubile girls, are always sexually available to ugly older men like Guadalupe and Pipo to Gato or Tonantzin to practically everybody.Īfter a while I got kind of sick of the same old soap opera antics. She has sex with just about everybody, has half a dozen children all by different fathers, and is a successful businesswoman and eventually the mayor of the town. Take the mega-breasted Luba, the Earth Mother of Palomar. Women are always having babies out of wedlock and seem to have no problem raising them on their own. Sex occupies the absolute center of this tale. The storyline is very soap opera-ish-the sexcapades of a small Latin American town (Mexican?). It’s interesting to watch the characters age-another feature almost totally lacking in the superhero comics where Aunt May always looks ancient and Mary Jane never starts to sag. The superhero influence of Ditko matched with the prosaic locale and often sleazy subject matter creates a certain cognitive dissonance-a very postmodern mélange of styles. ![]() I can also detect the presence of manga in the hyperbolic emotions, crowd scenes-the mark of Tezuka here and there. There’s a large Steve Ditko (co-creator of Spiderman) influence, especially in the early stuff: sharp chiaroscuro, simplified, minimalist figures and faces, hybrid cross between cartoons and more realist representation. It’s been canonized for a number of reasons, including the fact that it’s Latino and features strong female characters at its narrative.įirst the art. You read any book about graphic novels and you’re bound to come across a whole chapter on Love and Rockets. So this is the great Latino graphic novel epic. This is the kind of book that you want to race through for the plot but you also want to slow down to hang out with the characters more. As counterpoint to the story, clueless white surfer tourists are oblivious to what's going on around them. In the middle of the book there is a long story called "Human Diastrophism" in which a plague of monkeys, archeologists, and a serial killer invade Palomar straining the dynamics of the town and revealing a lot about the characters. For some of the stories you wind up knowing more than the characters, which adds to the tension. The stories jump around in time, so you see the town and its people at different stages in their lives and friendships. style - the way a simple line can convey such a range of emotions, the way the frames are jammed with so much humor and life. I've always been a fan of Hernandez Bros. They come in all shapes and sizes and are seen from every angle. Women are the strongest characters in the book. The book is densely plotted and densely peopled with characters that you wind up caring very deeply about. When a visiting photojournalist mentions that he died a while back, she asks him to keep it a secret. The owner of the movie house wonders why Bruce Lee hasn't put out any movies in a while. The sheriff and some other people have a debate over whether or not to get a telephone. Palomar is a fictional Central American town that is isolated and somewhat left behind in time. I stayed up reading it until 6:00am - something I haven't done in years. Palomar is probably the best graphic novel I have read. It was supposed to rain all weekend (again), so I went to the library and stocked up on graphic novels. Gilbert lives in Las Vegas, NV, with his wife Carol and daughter Natalia. Over 30 years later, the series is regarded as a modern classic and the Hernandez brothers continue to create some of the most startling, original, and intelligent comic art ever seen.įrom 1983 to 1996, Gilbert produced the now legendary Palomar saga, collected in the graphic novels Heartbreak Soup and Human Diastrophism, and considered to be one of the defining bodies of literature of its era. Initiated by older brother Mario and bankrolled by younger brother Ismael, Gilbert created Love and Rockets #1 with his brother Jaime in 1981. In Gilbert’s words, they were “born into a world with comic books in the house.” His childhood enthusiasm for the medium was equaled only by his appetite for punk rock. Gilbert Hernandez, born in 1957, enjoyed a pleasant childhood in Oxnard, California, with four brothers and one sister. Gilbert and his brother Jaime Hernández mostly publish their separate storylines together in Love And Rockets and are often referred to as 'Los Bros Hernandez'. ![]()
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