The sequel to the 2003 perennial classic, Palomar. Gilbert Hernandez climaxed his award-winning "Palomar" series at the end of Love and Rockets' original run by leveling the Central American hamlet. But he soon picked up the story of Luba: The hammer-wielding matriarch had emigrated to the U. S. where she contended not only with an unwelcoming new culture but also her extended family. These "America" stories - over 80 of them, ranging from quick one-page blackout sketches to graphic novellas - were originally published in a number of different comics and reprinted in a trilogy of oversized paperbacks. Luba collects in one compact, affordable hardcover the entirety of these tales, showcasing Gilbert Hernandez's wicked wit, great compassion, and uncanny understanding of how human beings love, squabble, and ultimately find a way to make it through this life.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this expansive sequel to 2003's Palomar, Hernandez gives readers a peek into the lives of the inimitable Luba and her extended family now living in modern-day Southern California. Often taking center stage is the snarky Venus, the young daughter of Petra, one of Luba's recently discovered half-sisters. Obsessed with romance comics—and in love with the much-older owner of a comic and record store—Venus tries to make sense not only of her own life but her family's complicated dynamics. Her aunt Fritzi, another half-sister of Luba and sister of Petra, is a lisping psychotherapist who goes through boyfriends like candy and embarrasses Venus by always speaking Spanish. Luba herself, working in a local immigration office, is still torn up over the disfigurement of her husband (who's still back in Central America) when he tried to save a woman from self-immolation. The backbone of the family, and also its Achilles heel, Luba is a larger-than-life personality who jumps off every page, whether she's the focus of the segment or just a background player. Hernandez collects over 100 stories here, ranging from graphic novellas to single-page episodes, with his usual dizzying cocktail of sexual intrigue, humor and soap opera–style angst. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Luba is as funny and delightful as ever in these stories (some super short one-pagers, others much longer, over a hundred stories in this collection) of her and her family and the play between their work lives and personal lives is comical and poignant and over the top in classic Hernandez style.” (Callie Miller - LAist )
“Starred Review. After closing the chronicles of life in the fictional Latin American village, Palomar, Hernandez followed the town’s matriarch, Luba, to America...This handsome edition collects more than 10 years’ worth of stories, and if these latter-day adventures lack the poetic grandeur of the Palomar tales—the North-of-the-border saga reads more like a freewheeling, sexually explicit telenovela—their welcome compilation lends much-needed cohesion to the sprawling continuum they constitute.” (Booklist )
“It’s an astounding collection of stories about family, life, love, and heartbreak. …[W]hen you read all of these powerful tales together in one place, you realise that Beto has created an epic here, unrivaled in its scale and depth. Words fail to express just how wonderful this collection is.” (Edward Kaye - Hypergeek )
“It’s probably not fair to expect Hernandez to issue another creative virtuoso like Palomar, but in the pages of Luba, he comes closer than might be expected. ... Although Luba doesn’t hit as hard as Palomar, it remains a compelling portrait of family in all its messy glory. Alternately sexy and vulgar, beautiful and mean, optimistic and intolerant, Luba and her family encompass all the ugliness and amazement that comes with being part of the human entity.” (Michael C. Lorah - Newsarama )
“Luba encompasses everything a turn-of-the-21st-century novel should be: paraliterary or lowbrow tropes of comics, pornography, soap opera, blended seamlessly with a highbrow literary accomplishment of pathos and familial history. It is as profane as it is dense...Luba is surreal and bizarre and arousing and gut-wrenching and hilarious.” (Dusty Horn - CarnalNation )
“[C]razily great… [and] totally all over the place: a wild, flapping, sprawling story with a huge cast (every one of whom seems to have his or her own substantial narrative), over-the-top raunchiness, gentle comedy, bizarre soap operatics, and a sea monster. Somehow, it all pulls together into a portrait of how completely freaking weird California is.” (Douglas Wolk - TIME/Techland )
“Starred Review. In this expansive sequel to 2003's Palomar, Hernandez gives readers a peek into the lives of the inimitable Luba and her extended family now living in modern-day Southern California….Hernandez collects over 100 stories here, ranging from graphic novellas to single-page episodes, with his usual dizzying cocktail of sexual intrigue, humor and soap opera–style angst.” (Publishers Weekly )
“[Luba] seems more and more like a great book every time I pick it up. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...It's going to be until the end of the year before I can attempt a bigger piece on the book...I feel I can wait that six months before a summary statement because there won't be many works in this calendar year better than this one, and if there [are] I'll be so happy I won't care...For now I just want people to know how good it is and remind folks that it's out there. It's a good read, too...It's going to be a good year spent in this book's company.” (Tom Spurgeon - The Comics Reporter )
“Just like Heartbreak Soup and Locas, Luba is hard to put down, and Beto’s art gets better as it gets more experimental... there’s tons of good material here, and the humongous format can’t be beat in terms of bang for your buck....There’s no denying that Hernandez’s comics reflect one of the highest peaks the comics medium has yet achieved.” (The Onion A.V. Club )
“The Luba stories interweave into a panoramic soap opera that are as much about her friends and extended family as about her, a vast, chaotic superstory of a kind most comics creators can only fantasize about creating... [R]ead individually the stories are good, but read as a unit they really take on a surrealistic yet concrete life, infused throughout with a random coherence that nonetheless unifies into a real experience. It's an impressive act.” (Steven Grant - Comic Book Resources )
“Starred Review. After closing the chronicles of life in the fictional Latin American village, Palomar, Hernandez followed the town’s matriarch, Luba, to America...This handsome edition collects more than 10 years’ worth of stories, and if these latter-day adventures lack the poetic grandeur of the Palomar tales—the North-of-the-border saga reads more like a freewheeling, sexually explicit telenovela—their welcome compilation lends much-needed cohesion to the sprawling continuum they constitute.” (Booklist )
“It’s an astounding collection of stories about family, life, love, and heartbreak. …[W]hen you read all of these powerful tales together in one place, you realise that Beto has created an epic here, unrivaled in its scale and depth. Words fail to express just how wonderful this collection is.” (Edward Kaye - Hypergeek )
“It’s probably not fair to expect Hernandez to issue another creative virtuoso like Palomar, but in the pages of Luba, he comes closer than might be expected. ... Although Luba doesn’t hit as hard as Palomar, it remains a compelling portrait of family in all its messy glory. Alternately sexy and vulgar, beautiful and mean, optimistic and intolerant, Luba and her family encompass all the ugliness and amazement that comes with being part of the human entity.” (Michael C. Lorah - Newsarama )
“Luba encompasses everything a turn-of-the-21st-century novel should be: paraliterary or lowbrow tropes of comics, pornography, soap opera, blended seamlessly with a highbrow literary accomplishment of pathos and familial history. It is as profane as it is dense...Luba is surreal and bizarre and arousing and gut-wrenching and hilarious.” (Dusty Horn - CarnalNation )
“[C]razily great… [and] totally all over the place: a wild, flapping, sprawling story with a huge cast (every one of whom seems to have his or her own substantial narrative), over-the-top raunchiness, gentle comedy, bizarre soap operatics, and a sea monster. Somehow, it all pulls together into a portrait of how completely freaking weird California is.” (Douglas Wolk - TIME/Techland )
“Starred Review. In this expansive sequel to 2003's Palomar, Hernandez gives readers a peek into the lives of the inimitable Luba and her extended family now living in modern-day Southern California….Hernandez collects over 100 stories here, ranging from graphic novellas to single-page episodes, with his usual dizzying cocktail of sexual intrigue, humor and soap opera–style angst.” (Publishers Weekly )
“[Luba] seems more and more like a great book every time I pick it up. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...It's going to be until the end of the year before I can attempt a bigger piece on the book...I feel I can wait that six months before a summary statement because there won't be many works in this calendar year better than this one, and if there [are] I'll be so happy I won't care...For now I just want people to know how good it is and remind folks that it's out there. It's a good read, too...It's going to be a good year spent in this book's company.” (Tom Spurgeon - The Comics Reporter )
“Just like Heartbreak Soup and Locas, Luba is hard to put down, and Beto’s art gets better as it gets more experimental... there’s tons of good material here, and the humongous format can’t be beat in terms of bang for your buck....There’s no denying that Hernandez’s comics reflect one of the highest peaks the comics medium has yet achieved.” (The Onion A.V. Club )
“The Luba stories interweave into a panoramic soap opera that are as much about her friends and extended family as about her, a vast, chaotic superstory of a kind most comics creators can only fantasize about creating... [R]ead individually the stories are good, but read as a unit they really take on a surrealistic yet concrete life, infused throughout with a random coherence that nonetheless unifies into a real experience. It's an impressive act.” (Steven Grant - Comic Book Resources )
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
At least I couldn't swallow this in a single night,
By Sye Sye (Perth, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Luba (Love and Rockets) (Hardcover)
Luba is another wonderful chunk of the Love and Rockets world. The focus here is on Luba's extended family who live in the States: half sister Petra, and her flock of kids, including the wonderfully tough, worldly little Venus, with her love of romance comics; and Luba's other half sister, 'Fritz' Rosalba, whose other adventures are collected in 'High Soft Lisp'. Beto obviously had lots of fun making this series as there are stacks of comicbook style conventions as well as plenty of lovingly drawn female characters. I think Beto did a wonderful job of moving away from the Palomar focus creating individual world with great new characters. Loads of short tales that often show different perspectives of the same events.
I discovered Love and Rockets through this edition of 'Luba' earlier this year. Before I read far, I researched the series and bought the lot. Check out Fantagraphics for a great Love and Rockets reading guide I love both Gilbert's and Jaime's work for their individuality and depth: I now own the WHOLE rerelease series!! I compare the depth of their respective worlds-Palomar and Hoppers-to that of Anthony Powell's 'Dance to the Music of Time.' Fantagraphics have done a wonderful job rereleasing the whole Love and Rockets series, for those of us who missed. If you like comics, check these guys out: they are quality through and through. Thanks Los Bros for all your decades of work!!
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