Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Fantagraphics

It’s probably impossible to review any single issue of Love and Rockets dispassionately or even fairly. The weight of twenty-five years’ worth of Love and Rockets comics lends every new issue a weight and depth it cannot produce on its own. The extended continuity is sometimes exhilarating and sometimes oppressive, but it makes for a unique reading experience. For a story running this long, in which every issue counts and there are no retcons or reboots, you can look to Cerebus or the first hundred issues of Fantastic Four, and there’s not a lot else.

Jaime’s lead story this issue was originally serialized in The New York Times Magazine in 2006 as “La Maggie La Loca,” and as such is clearly intended for a mass (read: uninitiated) audience, unfamiliar with Hoppers and unaware why Maggie might be a Loca at all. Maggie narrates her strange trip to Rena Titana’s island home, where the aging wrestling star has become a crazed recluse; there Maggie struggles with boredom, and occasionally with crime and the sea, but mostly with her feelings for a woman who is both a legend and a nutcase. The story works perfectly fine with no prior knowledge of the characters, but fans get the added bonus of the return of two long-gone characters: not only Rena, but also Tse Tse (when was her last appearance?). Serialized every Sunday, it must have been a blast, and presented all at once it’s a great, tight little story, utterly unlike anything else in comics, and also unlike anything we’ve seen in Love and Rockets before. It’s no mean feat to produce a story that feels just right for the series without repeating yourself at all.

A word must be put in about the art, because Jaime Hernandez–I’m sorry, Wally Wood, I’m sorry Gil Kane, but Jaime Hernandez is the best artist in the history of comics. His work clearly takes a lot of time–he’s not exactly a fast artist–but it sure looks effortless. Every stroke of his pen is the proverbial naked kiss; no line is ever out of place or superfluous. The panels are all carefully composed to be miniature works of art themselves, while also flowing smoothly from one to the next (a difficult balancing act, as Hal Foster and Mouse Guard proved by their failures). And, apropos of this issue, while black and white may show off Jaime’s clean line to better effect, this story was clearly created with color in mind, and its coloring, the contrasting night and day palettes, is beautifully done.

“La Maggie La Loca” was composed as a half page for the Times Magazine, so Jaime fills the rest of the page with a great Li’l Maggie story; this works wonderfully from a design standpoint, splitting each page between a color and a black and white story drawn in radically different styles. It’s also clever because it forces the reader to experience “La Maggie La Loca” as something approaching a the serial it was originally intended to be: instead of moving right on to the next page, the reader has to pause at each cliff hanger while absorbing the Li’l Maggie strip below before returning to the main feature.

Gilbert’s contribution to the issue, as has sadly been the case for a while now, I can recommend less wholeheartedly. Gilbert used to be regarded as the better writer of the brothers (creating a comfortable art/story division), but something that had been brewing for a while finally bubbled over during the second half of his New Love mini series (which had started out so beautifully): the focus became less on character or even weirdness (Gilbert’s strengths) and more on sexual adventurism. Perhaps this is just what happens naturally when you import characters from your pornographic comic (Birdland) into your “regular” comic; in any event, Gilbert’s L&R has, for a while now, begun to take on the decadence and the seedy feel of pornography. This is all well and good at first, but it does grow wearying. The characters look tired now, as though they want to stop acquiring ex-husbands and sexual partners and just settle down for a while. There are intimations that after this issue Gilbert is done with Luba’s sisters and their supporting cast, and for their sake, if nothing else, I hope it’s true.

(Maybe it’s just that I don’t want to see Venus, the little girl from Measles, get sodomized by two dwarves in bondage gear while giving a fellatio to a dog, which is pretty much guaranteed to happen if the series goes on much longer.)

This is not to say that Gilbert’s work in this issue is bad–it’s still head and shoulders above most other cartoonists. The fragmented storytelling technique he pushed to its furthest extent in “Love and Rockets X” is still in play here, and he’s still, formally, a master at it. Characters appear and disappear dropping impressionist hints at what goes on in their lives in a way that artfully lets his tell several stories at once. It’s just that I remember when Gilbert was so much better (of course, I also remember when he was worse, viz. Love and Rockets vol. 1 #1-2).

Incidentally anyone who doesn’t already own all the issues of Love and Rockets should go pick up the Maggie the Mechanic and Heartbreak Soup softcovers. They’re the best introductions to a series you’ll regret not being introduced to.