Customer Reviews

Love & Rockets Vol. 1: Music for Mechanics

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Okay, first of all: by giving this only 3 stars, I am in no way dismissing Los Bros Hernandez or their remarkable overall achievement. (I hope to eventually get around to reviewing the other 14 volumes in the L&R collection.)

It's completely subjective on my part. I got into L&R when Jaime and Gilbert were well into their Hoppers and Palomar worlds, respectively. To me, that's L&R. This first volume, collecting the first two issues, shows the brothers finding their way into their signature themes and styles. There's also a lot of semi-readable sci-fi stuff, mostly from Gilbert, in the form of "BEM." (I should probably go back and re-read that more carefully, just to give it another day in court.) It wasn't long before Los Bros discovered that, yes, Gary Groth was going to support their vision even if it didn't include machines and monsters. As soon as they dropped the pulpy stuff and started hanging out with their thousands (seemingly) of real-world characters, L&R truly became L&R as critics and readers knew and loved it.

Still, if you're just getting into L&R, you do have to start here. If only for completeness' sake. If nothing else, it's a trip to see Los Bros' early drawing styles, especially Jaime's (he got a lot slicker as the years went on; Gilbert had a looser style to begin with and got even looser and more expressive; I enjoy both their styles equally). Plus, you do get to meet fan favorites Maggie and Hopey (Jaime) and Luba (Gilbert) here for the first time. I'm just not all that interested in the "Mechanics" stuff (Rand Race was probably the least interesting character Jaime ever put to paper) or Gilbert's "Heavy Metal"-influenced stuff, and I'm definitely one of those readers who thought Maggie got about 1,000 times cooler when she put on weight in the later comics. But that's just my opinion...I could be wrong.

L+R, as an initial whole, is probably one of the most secure and entertaining worlds created for comics. The Bros Hernandez didn't fully find their voice until a few years in, so L+R vol. 1 sort of seems like practice. Their ambition even exceeds the depth of their story-telling abilities, as they jam-pack plot and dialogue to hyper-extensive proportions. When L+R hits its laid back mode a couple volumes down, things really get interesting. For what it is, it's even hard for me to give L+R vol. 1 four stars. I think I just give an extra star for the world The Hernandez Bros create in this volume, which leads to some of the greatest stories and characters modern fiction has birthed. Still good, but not that good.

writing: [6/10]

art: [9/10]

I got out - way out - of comic books several years before the debut of the Hernandez Bros. Love and Rockets books, but a friend of mine kept shoving the series under my nose, time after time. His persistence finally paid off; eventually, after a stategic, last-ditch attempt with a Christmas gift (thanks Brett!), I finally took notice.

I'm dang glad that I did. L&R couldn't rekindle my love affair with comics and draw me back into wanting to work in the medium, like I think my friend hoped, but the series did impress me. The Hernandez Bros. took the comic book in an entirely different direction than the medium had ever gone (even in the independents and graphic novels), and the Bros. and their work just got better with time. Music for Mechanics (Complete Love and Rockets, Book 1) Vol. 1 is the must see starting point for those just experiencing Los Bros. Hernandez' work.

Although I liked Gilbert's stuff well enough, my personal favorites here are the Mechanics stories by Jaime. I still dig his Dan DeCarlo/Archie's comics inspired drawing and the punk-rock madness of Maggie and her sci-fi exploits. Gilbert's artwork got a little too bizarre for my tastes. Or maybe it was due to my fond memories of Betty and Veronica... I don't know.

Hard to believe it's been more than two decades since I opened that Christmas gift, and I'm glad to say that, so far, Love and Rockets has weathered time's test. If you're new to the crew, I hope you enjoy your introduction. Have fun - the ride just gets better from here.

....like Betty and Veronica meets Almodovar meets Mad Max these future and past tales from Los Bros Hernandez, Jaime and Gilberto, are both highly entertaining and highly original. Some stories are set in barrios, some in futuristic deserts where denizens ride jet rockets like horses, some in a too realistic village where dreams and reality mesh and couples and not couples mesh. If you're not paying attention, you'll miss something important to the story line. This is how 'Love and Rockets' series first began, and when I was into the various plot twists and story lines I thought that this Los Bros' concept would make a good movie or even TV show...wordless stories of mythic and modern women warriors of Mexican and Spanish descent come right between chapters of a story line involving, for instance, whether Luba's dignity would stay intact after suffering emotional assault from a sister, a lover, the system, the poverty...some of the stories are ludicrous and humourous and others are graphic and real. All of them are full of humanity and bite. The art is Jaime and Gilberto at their Vargas-inspired best...they are equally great artists. You will love this!

Jaime and Gilbert drew and wrote their hearts out from the beginning of this series and onward. The characters will draw you in, befriend you, make fun of you, and keep you wanting more. THis series is still a rarity amongst "alternative" comics, in its smartly told and...expertly drawn tales. Much of what passes for alternative in either comics or music is either pure rubbish or promising ideas tapped by sophmoric artists. Love and Rockets were a real gem from the start, and continue to be so because of the craftmanship demonstrated time and time again, as well as the uninhibited vision of its creators.

This volume of the L&R collection is, obviously, the beginning. This was Los Bros Hernandez finding their voices and experimenting with concepts and genres. A large part of these stories are sci-fi, a genre the authors essentially abandoned later in the run, in favor of more character-driven "realistic" stories (with some exceptions, such as the later 'Penny Century' material). This volume introduces Maggie, Hopey and Luba, three characters who form the nucleus of the Hernandez universe all the way up until today (in fact, Maggie is the star of a new strip being published weekly in the New York Times Magazine starting in April 2006).

There are two main storylines in this volume, Mechanics (by Jaime)and BEM (by Gilbert). In Mechanics, Maggie leaves Hopey at home in Hoppers, their LA-area neighborhood/barrio, and goes off to work as a prosolar mechanic in the fictional country of Zhato, fixing robots, spaceships and other high-tech stuff. During her trip she falls for fellow mechanic Rand Race, gets involved in a civil war and gets lost in the jungle with former world champion wrestler Queen Rena Titanon. In BEM, Luba is shown as an ambitious would-be dictator, attempting to harness the power of the giant monster BEM, who has been released from his underground prison by greedy land developers trying to use it as the cheapest possible labor.

In my personal opinion these stories are absurd, funny and beautiful, and while they don't necessarily reflect the characters' eventual 'reality', they are excellent nonetheless. In fact, the included short story Locas Tambien is a much better example of what the stories are like in the future run; no ray guns or creatures, just friends hanging out, going to clubs and worrying about getting beat up. So to sum up, I'll say that if you want to see what Love & Rockets is all about, this is a great place to start. If you're looking for the Hernandez Brothers at their very best, I would suggest their collections 'Locas' (by Jaime) and 'Palomar' (by Gilbert).

knowing that there is a rabid fanbase for cartoons/comics out there, i thought i would give the genre a try. i read a bit about the subject & found that the LOVE AND ROCKETS series is highly regarded by many comic fanatics. So i got this book, the 1st in the series, and came to the conclusion that the universe likes to play jokes on me. certainly, nobody could actually like this book! there is no way! a complete waste of time, it is. pure crap. I hate it, i hate it, i hate it!!!!!!!!!!! so anyway, that's my thoughts about my first foray into the comic book genre. ick.

I'm writing just to warn people not to buy this book!

I don't know, people say that Love & Rockets get better after this one... But, in my humble opinion, it does never get any better. And I also bought that Palomar book and I can say this for sure. Sorry guys...

I really tried hard to read this book (and it was a great effort from my part) and I still gave up just 8 pages to the end...

What's is this? Read something because some "critic" guys told this is the supposed beginning of one of the "best works in the comics medium"? No, no, I gave up, and I should have given up earlier... I really couldn't feel attracted to read, I used to read before sleep, and I used to read only 3 pages a night and get tired... (it's a good medicine for insomnia... and a good torture technique too...).

One of the problems with these stories and others in L&R is because there's some deliberate (or maybe no... but let us believe that these artists are good enough to make things deliberate) crudeness everywhere!

The crudeness begins with the art! It's hard to get engaged with the visual in these stories and the page style. And the lettering? It isn't well arranged, there's lot of text sometimes (sometimes no text at all), and you feel uncomfortable to read. It's funny also the fact that the guys think that everybody knows spanish expressions!! Or the stories are so interesting that someone would bother to look for them in a dictionary!!!

Besides, now I arrived in one of the main problems in L&R... The Brothers Hernandes are supposing every time that people love what they are producing... I mean, when you play with the patience of you reader, or make some non-linear tricks in your stories, or you throw something in the air without further explanation (since it will be clear later - or not... - or there will be some implicit reflective meaning that will be noticed later) you have to make sure that your reader is attracted to your material, that things are very engaging, that your reader will really want to follow the stories to understand things...

On the other hand... Who said them that I'm interested? I mean, I begin to read a story because someone said it's interesting... But I didn't even begin to read and I'm not feeling attracted by the visual... then, I don't feel attracted by the beginning of the stories, then I begin to get tired to read, then I begin to hate things... Then, I wouldn't feel any interest to proceed just to see if in the end things get straight in my head, and I begin to see the lights of the story! And I'm sorry...

I still really don't know how I achieved the end of that Ben story!

It's like to go up a tibetan mountain, just because someone said that you will get 100 dollars!! Well, there are many easy, interesting, attractive, and personal enriching ways to get 100 dollars... I hope you get my meaning. The truth is that there are a lot of more satisfying comic book stories than L&R out there, and the truth is that L&R have been very overrated by "comic book critics".