Customer Reviews

Maggie the Mechanic (Love & Rockets)

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While I have always admired Jaime Hernandez' art and was familiar with the characters from his stories in Love and Rockets, I had never actually read any of the stories featuring his creations Maggie, Hopey, Rand Race, Rena Titanon, and Penny Century. Reading MAGGIE THE MECHANIC, the first volume in an all-new 25th anniversary series of chronological reprints, I can say that it's probably a good thing I waited to try these stories as an adult, as they wouldn't have mixed well with the hardcore super-heroics I was crazy for as a teenager back in the mid-eighties. But that's okay: MAGGIE THE MECHANIC has turned me into a fan of the Love and Rockets stories, and I will certainly pick up further volumes.

This is a 272-page, very affordable collection, not printed on the cheap newsprint of Marvel's Essentials or DC's Showcase Presents, but on a thicker, white paper. As a result, the artwork is crisp and clear, and with thick matte cardstock covers, the entire collection is of high quality and very stylish.

These are the earliest of Hernandez' L&R stories, and it seems that they initially have no clear focus. You just never know where each chapter is going to end up, but it works too well to be mere chance. Sci-fi, heroic fantasy, punk, Latino culture, and slapstick are all deftly combined in an approach that, while it could be considered improvisational, is in no way amateurish. I can't wait to continue with the adventures of these well-defined characters and their all-too-familiar problems. It seems odd that I would find any familiarity with characters that interact with dinosaurs and rocket ships, but that's what makes these stories so masterful. Included here are everything from one-page strips to extended tales such as "Las Mujeres Perdidas".

Oh yes, be sure to check out the companion volume HEARTBREAK SOUP, the first volume of Palomar stories from L&R by Jaime's brother Gilbert Hernandez.

Love and Rockets splits roughly into two parts - LOCAS which deals with Jaime Hernandez's world, and Palomor, which centres around the fictional Mexican village of the same name, and is written by his brother, Gilbert.
This collects the former, which looks at a Los Angeles suburb called Hoppers and it's mainly Mexican inhabitants. It's two main characters are Maggie - an 18 year old girl who is charmingly clumsy, falls in love easily, and loves her bestfriend and sometime lover Hopey as much as she is frustrated by her antics. Hopey is confident, rough around the edges and flirts with the authorities and her place in society. Littered throughout are just as interesting co-stars, such as Penny Century, a voluptous woman who dreams of being a super hero, Isabel, who is plauged with supernatural powers and demons, and Rena, an older female wrestling superstar who becomes a mother figure and role model to Maggie.
The Locas universe is so big and vast (the Hernandez brothers started the comics in the early 80s, and after a few years break, recently started it back up again in the late 00's) and fans opinion on where to delve in first varies. I believe that this collection, which includes the first LOCAS stories, is the perfect place. The reason why others believe it may not be suitable, is because at the beginning of the first Locas stories, the world that Maggie and Hoppey lived in was very very different. It was more of a sci-fi ala Tank Girl than what it would become in the next collection. But, I like the fact that I know all I can about the girls and their world, and in a way, I kind of perfer the first world they were a part of, as it mixed a superhero world with that of average day to day occurances.
Either way, Jaime has created such an amazing world with the kind of characters you wished you could sit next to on a boring plane flight - they are guranteed to keep you entertained and hooked during your stay with them.

these have alot to do with maggie and hopie and the whole crazy gang of hispanic l.a. youth that made this series great. I have to say that it is a lot better version of life,too, than portrayed in 'gangland' on the history channel.... man, is this a great series.