SOCIAL DRAMA

This 24th collection of the three decades – and counting – run of Los Bros Hernandez’s seminal comic book series Love & Rockets, archives in handsome hardback 15 short stories focusing on the supporting and peripheral characters in Jaime Hernandez’s ‘La Locas’ grand narrative.

The strip’s original influences – Hispanic culture, the LA punk scene, pulp fiction and pop culture – remain in evidence, but almost 30 years down the line Jamie Hernandez’s storytelling, along with his deceptively simple black and white artwork, has mellowed and matured to produce some of the most refined cartooning to be seen in print today. And it’s a testament to the author’s evergreen imagination that such a richly developed character as flighty lesbian Hopey Glass shares the pages with a new and equally beguiling gal, Vivian, aka Frogmouth, a ball-breaking wannabe actress who promises great things to come.