TITLE: Love and Rockets Issue #42
YEAR: August 1993
COMPANY: Fantagraphics Books
Art, Story, Lettering by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez
“Love and Rockets”, created by the Hernandez Brothers, primarily Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez (brother Mario Hernandez would contribute a few times), the comic book series would focus two different stories, one focusing on Gilbert’s “Palomar” series which featured a fictional Mexican village of Palomar and Jaime’s “LOCAS” series which focused on a group of Latino-American friends living in Hoppers.
An anthology series which is known to feature a variety of stories, the front cover features a vibrant cover featuring Jaime’s popular characters Hopey and Maggie, with Maggie going Easter Egg hunting and Hopey smiling gleefully outdoors.
For those not familiar with the “Love and Rockets” comics, the first volume were released in magazine-sized format and the series began in 1982 and ended with issue #50 in 1996. The latest volume 4 is now on its second issue in 2017.
The first story titled “Perla and Beatriz” is by Jaime Hernandez and features Perla Chascarillo (a.k.a. Maggie, Perla is her real name but when a mechanic started calling her Maggie, everyone started to call her that) and Beatriz Garcia (a.k.a. Penny Century).
A little back story, both are two of the original Locas. Both are comic book fans and she eventually becomes the mistress and later on as the wife of the wealthy Costigan. And among the friends, Penny is always hooking up with a man (married or not).
In the story, Beatriz is having a party and she sees that Maggie is bored. Beatriz leaves the party to take Maggie to the beach. Seeing how Penny is a bit bummed, Maggie takes her to her cousin’s wrestling match and enjoy the night out with each other.
In Gilbert Hernandez’ “Farewell, My Palomar” (1 and 2), the story focuses on Jesus and he is reminiscing of the past when the young guys and they all are wanting baths by the well-endowed Luba. And back to the present with Jesus getting out of prison and revisiting his childhood friends and seeing how their lives have changed.
In “Easter Hunt”, it’s more of a dream sequence featuring Hopey and Maggie as the two are having fun and getting into trouble.
In “…Gonna Make You My Man”, the story focuses on Hopey’s brother Joey and their mother. Someone did a joke of Hope being missing and her picture was on a milk carton and Ms. Glass is upset. But when Janet finds out the truth, what will she do?
In the story “Farewell, My Palomar Part 3”, the story still focuses on Jesus as he joins his friends in Palomar for a party. Guadalupe plans to leave Palomar to study in the United States, and Pipo is leaving to expand her business in America and her family throws a party for her. In the fourth part of the story, Gato returns to Palomar, he wants to offer a business deal for Pipo, but what happens when he comes across an angry Sergio.
These “Farewell, My Palomar” are enjoyable stories. The first giving us a storyline with Penny Century and Maggie hanging out and then the Palomar stories which are entertaining because you see things through the eyes of Jesus, to show how his friends turned up but how things are so dysfunctional more than ever, seeing them today.
Also, it was great to see a chapter which focused on Hopey’s mother and brother, which was fun to read.
Overall, “Love and Rockets” issue #42 is another entertaining issue and if you have never experienced reading a “Love and Rockets” storyline, it’s definitely worth checking out!