Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 2

Your second annual eye-popping 100-page dollop of all-new Love & Rockets material! With the conclusion of Jaime's "Ti-Girls Adventures" and two from Gilbert: the surreal, wordless "Hypnotwist" and the mysterious "Sad Girl."

In the concluding 50-page half of Jaime’s outrageous, acclaimed, full-on superhero mash-up “Ti-Girls Adventures,” our protagonist, rookie do-gooder Boot Angel, learns more hard lessons about becoming a superheroine. Eventually, just about the entire cast gets together in a big family reunion that unexpectedly takes place in Maggie’s tiny, messy one-bedroom apartment.

Sandwiched between the concluding chapters of Jaime's story, Gilbert turns in two mind-benders of his own. “Hypnotwist” is Gilbert’s 39-page epic story of a beautiful, leggy redhead’s surreal journey into a night filled with mysterious shady characters, dreamlike violence, and sparkling retro spike heels. But is it real, or something else? For readers trying to parse the truth, Gilbert ups the ante by telling the whole story without using a single word. And "Sad Girl" (previewed in our 2009 Free Comic Book Day offering) is the tale of a disaffected young bombshell actress nicknamed "Killer" and the web of jealousy, gossip, notoriety and mystery that surrounds her. 100 color illustrations

Gilbert Hernandez was born in 1957 in Oxnard, California, and is considered one of the greatest living comics writer-artists in the world. In 1982, Hernandez co-created, along with his brothers Mario and Jaime, the ongoing, iconic, internationally acclaimed comic book series Love and Rockets, one of the greatest bodies of work the medium has ever seen. In addition to his work on Love and Rockets, its spinoffs, and side series, Hernandez has released a prodigious amount of original graphic novels and miniseries, such as Sloth, Bumperhead, and Marble Season. He also collaborated with Darwyn Cooke on The Twilight Children for DC. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2017 and is the recipient of a Fellow Award from United States Artists and a PEN Center USA’s Graphic Literature Award for Outstanding Body of Work. Hernandez lives in Ventura, CA, with his wife and daughter.

Jaime Hernandez was one of six siblings born and raised in Oxnard, California. His mother passed down a love of comics, which for Jaime became a passion rivaled only by his interest in the burgeoning punk rock scene of 1970s Southern California. Together with his brothers Gilbert and Mario, Jaime co-created the ongoing comic book series Love and Rockets in 1981, which Gilbert and Jaime continue to both write and draw to this day. Jaime’s work began as a perfect (if unlikely) synthesis of the anarchistic, do-it-yourself aesthetic of the punk scene and an elegant cartooning style that recalled masters such as Charles M. Schulz and Alex Toth. Love and Rockets has evolved into one of the great bodies of American literary fiction, spanning five decades and countless high-water marks in the medium’s history. In 2016, Hernandez won the prestigious Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his graphic novel, The Love Bunglers. In 2017, he (along with Gilbert) was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, and, in 2018, he released his first children’s book, the Aesop Book Prize-winning The Dragon Slayer: Folktales from Latin America. He is a lifelong Angeleno.

Mario Hernandez (b. 1953, Oxnard, California) co-created Love and Rockets, the long-running, internationally acclaimed comic book series. In 1981, he and his younger brothers, Gilbert and Jaime, self-published the first Love and Rockets zine. The Hernandez brothers’ anthology title became Fantagraphics’ flagship comic in 1982 when the independent began publishing it. He drew and wrote the occasional story for Love and Rockets, such as “Somewhere in California,” and still contributes writing, story ideas, and dialogue. In 1993, his one-shot solo comic, Brain Capers, was published, and he worked on projects such as Mr. X, Citizen Rex, and the anthology Real Girl. He won an Inkpot Award in 2012 and lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.