Love and Rockets (often abbreviated L&R) is a long-running comic book series by the Hernández brothers: Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario. The series is published by Fantagraphics. It was one of the first comic books in the alternative comics movement of the 1980s.

The Hernández brothers produce stories in the series independently of each other. Gilbert and Jaime produce the majority of the material, and tend to focus on particular casts of characters and settings. Those of Gilbert usually focus on a cast of characters in the fictional Central American village of Palomar; the stories often feature magic realist elements. The Locas stories of Jaime center on a social group in Los Angeles, particularly the Latina friends and sometime-lovers Maggie and Hopey.

Overview

Raised in the city of Oxnard, California, the Hernández brothers had been reading comics since childhood. In the late 1960s, the brothers got into the underground comix movement through discovering a copy of Robert Crumb's Zap Comix.

The magazine temporarily ceased publication in 1996 after the release of issue #50. However, after several publications featuring characters from the series, in 2001 the brothers revived the series as Love and Rockets Volume 2, and have continued it since.

thumb|right|Gilbert and Jaime Hernández at the 2007 [[ComicCon. Gilbert is in the middle, Jaime is in the green shirt.]]

Locas, follows Maggie Chascarrillo, a chicano woman living in Southern California, and an extended cast of her friends, family, lovers, and rivals. Originally a young "prosolar mechanic", the early stories contain rocket ships and dinosaurs, before starting to include less adventure tales and more slice-of-life. Other characters include her punk rocker maybe-girlfriend Hopey Glass, depressed writer Isabelle Reubens, blonde bombshell Penny Century, charming artist and Maggie's on-off boyfriend Ray Dominguez, and gang member Speedy Ortíz.

The original runs of Palomar and Locas have each been collected in the early 2000s as one-volume editions by Fantagraphics, although not all of the stories involving "Locas" and "Palomar" characters are contained in these collections. The original fifty-issue Love and Rockets Volume One has also been reprinted in its entirety in both a fifteen-volume paperback graphic novel series,

Content

Characters

Jaime's Locas

  • Margarita Luisa "Maggie" Chascarrillo: called "Perla" by her family; best friend (and occasional girlfriend) of Hopey; otherwise dates men, most prominently Ray Dominguez. She befriended Hopey in the punk rock scene of their southern Californian hometown and briefly becomes a world-travelling mechanic who goes on science-fiction flavored adventures in the early issues.
  • Esperanza Leticia "Hopey" Glass: sharp-tongued, wild and adventurous best friend of Maggie. A lesbian who plays bass in a series of punk bands, often touring and furthering her adventures/story.
  • Beatríz "Penny Century" García: bombshell friend to Maggie/Hopey and wife of the ridiculously wealthy H.R. Costigan. She aspires to become a superhero.
  • Isabel Maria "Izzy" Ortíz Reubens: Friend/mentor to Maggie and a sister of Speedy. Izzy is a writer who suffers a nervous breakdown after a divorce/abortion, becoming a notorious "witch lady" in Hoppers.
  • Daphne "Daffy" Matsumoto: a rich, naive young friend of Maggie and Hopey who is a prominent supporting character in the early comics, but later goes off to college.
  • Ray Dominguez: one of Maggie's boyfriends, a painter. Jaime follows his life from Hoppers to LA.
  • Doyle Blackburn: Ray's childhood friend, whose level head cools many situations, who struggles with a history of violence.
  • Rena "La Toña" Titañon and Vicki Glori: championship rivals in the world of women's Mexican wrestling. Rena is Maggie's friend and (through her many adventures) a loved (and hated) Latin American revolutionary icon. Vicki, later a wrestling coach and league official, is Maggie's aunt and her guardian during her Huerta years.
  • Danita Lincoln: Maggie's coworker at Vandy's. She dates Ray after Maggie leaves town, also works as a stripper with Doyle's girlfriend Lily.
  • H.R. Costigan: horned billionaire who has an open marriage with Penny Century.
  • Theresa "Terry" Downe: talented, cold, pretty guitar player who still pines for ex-girlfriend Hopey.
  • Rand Race: handsome, world-famous mechanic who hires Maggie and takes her on adventures, oblivious to her crush on him because of his infatuation with former girlfriend Penny Century.
  • Eulalio "Speedy" Ortíz: Isabel's brother, a member of the local "Hoppers" gang, shared a mutual crush on Maggie until his untimely death. The character is the inspiration for the rock group Speedy Ortiz.
  • Esther Chascarillo: Maggie's younger sister. Maggie calls her "Esther Babies" or "Babies". She has a brief relationship with Speedy.

Gilbert's Palomar

  • Luba: no-nonsense, hammer-wielding, promiscuous, enormously busty bañadora (bath giver) who rises to mayor of Palomar and has a complex history before coming to town.
  • Luba's children: Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, Casimira, Socorro, Joselito, Concepción.
  • Luba's lovers: Archie, Khamo, Peter, Jose.
  • Ofelia: Luba's cousin who helped raise her and her children.
  • Heraclio and Carmen: a loving couple who served as central characters for many early Palomar stories.
  • Israel, Satch, Vicente, Jesús: Heraclio and Pipo's childhood gang of friends.
  • Chelo: sheriff of Palomar, midwife who delivered many of the main characters.
  • Pipo, Gato, Sergio: beautiful, vain, successful Pipo; her angry but devoted (ex-)husband Gato, and her son (by Manuel) Sergio, a world-famous soccer star.
  • Tonantzín Villaseñor: beautiful, hard-partying girl who sells fried babosos (slugs) and later becomes passionately politically active.
  • Manuel and Soledad: friends/lovers/rivals, stars of the first Palomar story "Heartbreak Soup"
  • Fritz, Petra, Venus: Fritz and Petra are Luba's long-lost half-sisters who share her voluptuous figure and penchant for adventure. Venus is Petra's precocious, comics-loving daughter.
  • María: Luba's mother, who abandoned her when she was a toddler. She emigrated to United States and became mother to Fritz and Petra.
  • Errata Stigmata: a somewhat surreal character who develops stigmata as a reaction to severe emotional trauma. Her first appearance was in "Radio Zero" and her origin is told in "Tears from Heaven".

Landmark stories

This list provides an example of the types of stories that helped Love and Rockets gain critical acclaim.

Jaime

  • Mechanics – the original "Maggie the mechanic" story, and one of Jaime’s earliest longer stories, in which Maggie travels to South America with a group of mechanics and becomes caught in the middle of a political revolution.
  • The Ghost of Hoppers – grown-up Maggie, now an apartment manager and still in off-and-on relationships with Hopey, meets Vivian Solis and travels with her back to the neighbourhood of Hoppers. There she has a surreal experience watching Izzy's house burn down. The series was published at magazine size,

Volume II

After the end of the first series, the two brothers began working on separate titles that carried on many of the stories in the original Love and Rockets. Sales for these were lower, so in 2001 they began to release a second series under that name. As of January 2026, seventeen issues have been released.

Graphic novels and collections

The Complete Love and Rockets

All published at Fantagraphics:

  1. Music for Mechanics by Los Bros Hernández; collecting stories from Love and Rockets vol. 1 #1-2; October 1985; 152 pages
  2. Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernández; collecting stories from Love and Rockets vol. 2 #1-14, 17-19; April 2013; 112 pages
  3. The Children of Palomar by Gilbert Hernández; collecting New Tales of Old Palomar #1-3; August 2013; 104 pages (part of the Ignatz series) collecting stories from Love and Rockets: New Stories #7-8 and Love and Rockets vol. 4 #1-5; April 2019; 96 pages
  4. Tonta by Jaime Hernández; collecting stories from Love and Rockets: New Stories #5-6; July 2019; 104 pages
  5. Life Drawing by Jaime Hernández; collecting stories from Love and Rockets: New Stories #7-8 and Love and Rockets vol. 4 #1-2, 6-15; February 2025; 136 pages
  6. Lovers and Haters by Gilbert Hernández; collecting stories from Love and Rockets: New Stories #7-8, Love and Rockets vol. 4 #1, #3, Psychodrama Illustrated #1, #5, and original material; November 2025; 120 pages

Fritz B-Movies spin-offs

The following volumes by Gilbert Hernández, under the collective title Fritz B-Movies, depict the filmography of B movie actress Fritz Martinez, Luba's youngest sister. Some of them have been prepublished in the magazine, but the majority appeared directly in book form.

  1. Chance in Hell, September 2007, October 2019, 232 pages
  2. Hypnotwist/Scarlet by Starlight, Luba Book 1, collecting stories from New Love #1-6, Luba's Comics and Stories #1, Luba #1-4, and Measles #1, 6; June 2014; 312 pages
  3. Ofelia by Gilbert Hernández; Luba Book 2, collecting stories from Luba's Comics and Stories #2-5, Luba #3-10, and Measles #3; January 2015; 256 pages
  4. Comics Dementia by Gilbert Hernández; Non-Locas and Palomar comics; collecting stories from New Love #1-6, Love and Rockets vol. 2 #1-6, 8, 10-11, 14, and 19, Goody Good Comics #1, The Comics Journal Special Edition #1 and 4, Details Magazine #11/1992, UG!3K & Expozo, The Naked Cosmos, Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy #2, Slant Magazine, Weirdo #25, Strip AIDS U.S.A., Vortex #7, Hate #26, Mome #19, Zero Zero #7, and Measles #5; February 2016; 224 pages
  5. Angels and Magpies by Jaime Hernández; Locas Book 6, collecting stories from Love and Rockets vol. 2 #20, and Love and Rockets: New Stories #1-4; December 2017; 260 pages
  6. Three Sisters by Gilbert Hernández; Luba Book 3, collecting stories from Luba's Comics and Stories #3-4, 6-8, Love and Rockets vol. 2 #3-9, 11-18, and original material from Luba: Three Daughters; August 2018; 280 pages
  7. Children of Palomar & Other Stories by Gilbert & Mario Hernández; Palomar Book 5 and uncollected non-Palomar stories, collecting stories from Love and Rockets vol. 2 #1-14, 17-19, New Love #6, New Tales of Old Palomar #1-3 and Love and Rockets: New Stories #1; January 2023; 280 pages

Hardcovers

Edited segments of both the Palomar and the Locas stories are available in hardcover format.

KCET broadcast a documentary in 2022 on the comic as part of its Artbound series titled Love and Rockets: The Great American Comic Book.

References

  • The Love and Rockets page at Fantagraphics
  • A chronology, character list, and many links to reviews and other fan pages
  • Shelf Life is a Sequart column that often reviews early Love and Rockets books.
  • A review of Gilbert's L&R spinoff New Tales of Old Palomar #1 at The Daily Cross Hatch, from March 15, 2007
  • Interview with Gilbert Hernández at The Daily Cross Hatch, from April 2, 2007
  • Interview with Gilbert Hernández, Part 2 at The Daily Cross Hatch, from May 1, 2007
  • Xicanosmosis A cultural studies essay examining the relationship between the work of Frida Kahlo and Gilbert Hernández