Heartbreak Soup: A Love and Rockets Book

Such an assured beginning to the Love and Rockets story. We are introduced to the people of Palomar when Luba moves in and starts a rival bath house. The stories flow and people age and de-age in a way that only comics can do. Palomar is a comic book version of Macondo from 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', and that book is referenced directly and sylistically. I had only read later installments of the Hernandez Brothers world but this one fits perfectly like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, and made complete sense. The characters are all very developed at all of their ages. Impressive story telling.

Although I've known about the [[Hernandez]] Brothers' "Love & Rockets" for the past quarter century -- because of my affinity for the band Love & Rickets, which took its name from the comics -- if always put off reading them in favor of something more action oriented: "The Crow", "Y: The Last Man", or anything with Batman. But now that I've read the first dozen or so stories of the series, I wish I'd started reading them back in 1990, when I first saw an issue on the shelf at store where my future brother-in-law bought all of his X-men comics.

The mixture of comedy and tragedy, the mundane and extraordinary is simply astounding. The range of emotion experienced by the characters and the readers goes beyond most contemporary fiction. All show more this miraculous storytelling is enhanced by the masterful manipulation of the craft of comic art. Gilbert Hernandez follows only behind Will Eisner in his power with this medium. show less

I totally missed out on Love and Rockets back in the day. In 1982, I was definitely not a cool enough kid to be buying comics (living in the suburbs, all I ever saw was school, home, and the back seat of my mom's station wagon)and by the time I was interested in stories like Neil Gaiman's Sandman, ten years had passed and L-n-R just wasn't my cup of tea.

Fast forward another 20+ years and I decide now is as good a time as any to get some education about the legendary Hernandez Brothers. Fortunately, Bill at the Copacetic Comics Company (www.copaceticcomics.com) knows more about Love and Rockets than nearly any other living human being, so he was the perfect person to help me figure out where to start with a series that has over 30 years show more of collected work.

Heartbreak Soup was a perfect place as it provided a thematic container for the cast of hundreds that come in and out of the stories (well, maybe not hundreds, but there are lots of characters to keep track of...). There were a few times when the narrative would quickly move through time and I'd get lost ("Wait! When did Pipo grow up and get big, permed hair? I thought she was 10?") but I was generally able to follow the characters and their relationships without much effort. The only exception would be the stories Duck Feet and Duck Feet 2 - I have NO idea what those were about - other than Luba falling into a pit and various people in Palomar turning into zombies. Or maybe that was it - maybe there wasn't anything else to "get"? :-)

I didn't love Heartbreak Soup as much as I do other graphic novels or comic series but it's certainly an enjoyable read and an interesting opportunity to look back at a very cutting-edge and alternative publication from the 1980s and 90s. I'm looking forward to checking out the Maggie the Mechanic Love and Rockets book next. show less

Having originally read these stories in the individual issues of Love and Rockets many years ago, it's remarkable to me how much I missed the first time around, and how much easier it is to appreciate Gilbert Hernandez's sweeping accomplishment when the early stories of Palomar are brought together in a single volume with a chronological ordering.

The Heartbreak Soup stories are non-standard comics fare to be sure, and what's all the more amazing is how successful Hernandez is at making it all work so brilliantly. The key is his richly developed set of characters, and the magic really stems from his ability to draw the many threads of his story along over a wide scope of time (and pages!) while only rarely falling back on stereotypes or show more cliches. The principal characters (particularly Luba and Chelo) are particularly well-articulated, but the lesser characters do not disappoint - Hernandez has defined them all with thought and depth, and the result is one of the most rewarding long narratives in modern comics history. show less

A true classic. I'm glad I finally read it, if only to experience a truly unique voice in comics, especially when it came out in the early 80's. Beautiful art, lovely writing, and a true sense of the wonder that runs beneath normal, ordinary lives.

Eh. So many intro characters I had trouble caring.