Love and Rockets New Stories TPB (2008- Fantagraphics) comic books

Volume 1 - 1st printing. By The Brothers Hernandez. Love & Rockets: New Stories #1 reboots the beloved ongoing Love & Rockets comic into a fat, annual graphic novel-length package! Jaime launches the new format with a story that's unusual even for him - a full-on, pulse-pounding super-hero yarn! Maggie's longtime friend Penny Century has finally realized her longtime dream of acquiring super-powers, but at a terrible personal cost. Now she rampages through the galaxy, half mad with grief, and a motley group of super-heroes assembles to try to stop her - led by Maggie's girlfriend Angel and her mysterious neighbor Alarma, and involving a number of characters longtime Love and Rockets fans will delight in recognizing. The epic-length 50-page story (only the first half of the saga!) combines Jaime's razor sharp characterization and superlative art with wildly inventive, Kirby-style slam-bang super-hero action. Then Gilbert Hernandez explodes with a similarly generous helping of his fantastically creative one-shot short stories: "Tamanny" (rookie cop vs. demonic drug users); "Papa" (a turn-of-the-century story involving a traveling businessman); "The New Adventures of Duke and Sammy" (super-powered Martin and Lewis impostors in outer space); "The Tender Room" (Into the Wild as re-imagined by Beto); "Chiro el Indio" (written by third brother Mario Hernandez); and "Never Say Never" (a kangaroo gets lucky in Las Vegas). One hundred pages of Jaime, Gilbert and Mario Hernandez at the peak of their powers! Softcover, 104 pages, B&W. Mature Readers Cover price $14.99.

Volume 1 - 2nd and later printings. By The Brothers Hernandez. Love & Rockets: New Stories #1 reboots the beloved ongoing Love & Rockets comic into a fat, annual graphic novel-length package! Jaime launches the new format with a story that's unusual even for him - a full-on, pulse-pounding super-hero yarn! Maggie's longtime friend Penny Century has finally realized her longtime dream of acquiring super-powers, but at a terrible personal cost. Now she rampages through the galaxy, half mad with grief, and a motley group of super-heroes assembles to try to stop her - led by Maggie's girlfriend Angel and her mysterious neighbor Alarma, and involving a number of characters longtime Love and Rockets fans will delight in recognizing. The epic-length 50-page story (only the first half of the saga!) combines Jaime's razor sharp characterization and superlative art with wildly inventive, Kirby-style slam-bang super-hero action. Then Gilbert Hernandez explodes with a similarly generous helping of his fantastically creative one-shot short stories: "Tamanny" (rookie cop vs. demonic drug users); "Papa" (a turn-of-the-century story involving a traveling businessman); "The New Adventures of Duke and Sammy" (super-powered Martin and Lewis impostors in outer space); "The Tender Room" (Into the Wild as re-imagined by Beto); "Chiro el Indio" (written by third brother Mario Hernandez); and "Never Say Never" (a kangaroo gets lucky in Las Vegas). One hundred pages of Jaime, Gilbert and Mario Hernandez at the peak of their powers! Softcover, 104 pages, B&W. Mature Readers Cover price $14.99.

Volume 2 - 1st printing. By The Brothers Hernandez. This volume gets off to a flying start with "Hypnotwist," Gilbert's 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. Then, in the concluding 50-page chapter of Jaime's outrageous, acclaimed, 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 for a reunion that unexpectedly takes place in Maggie's tiny bedroom apartment. Finally, Beto gets top heavy with "Sad Girl," and introduces Killer! the sweetest teen starlet of the solar system! Forget WATCHMEN, LOVE AND ROCKETS is the big one! Softcover, 104 pages, B&W. Mature Readers Cover price $14.99.

Volume 3 - 1st printing. By The Brothers Hernandez. After Jaime's two-part super-hero epic from Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 and #2, we return to the enthralling minutiae of the "Locas" cast's lives for the first time in three years. In the main story Ray finally gets his date with Maggie: The couple goes to an art opening and to dinner, they discuss the crazy world of dreams, and Maggie asks Ray for a huge favor. Also in this volume, "Brown Town, Blue Sun," a new installment in Jaime's beloved "little kids" flashback series: A ten-year-old Maggie and her family move away from Hoppers to a desert ghost town... And on the Gilbert side of the ledger, "Scarlet by Starlight" is a story starring Fritz (of High Soft Lisp fame) that (in contrast to #2's silent masterpiece "Hypnotwist") consists entirely of a 14-page dialogue scene. "Killer/Sad Girl/Star" picks up the "Sad Girl" character from LRNS #2, and how no one in her family takes her budding film career seriously. Softcover, 7 1/2-in. x 9-in., 104 pages, B&W. Mature Readers Cover price $14.99.

Volume 4 - 1st printing. By The Brothers Hernandez. Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 picks up where #3 left off with the conclusion to "Love Bunglers" and a sequel of sorts to the acclaimed and heartrending "Browntown." High Soft Lisp's Fritz returns and in "King Vampire," two teens want to join a local vampire club but things get serious when real vampires show up. But wait - is this a real story or another "Fritz movie"? Some of the characters look awfully familiar! Softcover, 7 1/2-in. x 9-in., 104 pages, B&W. Mature Readers Cover price $14.99.

Volume 5 - 1st printing. By The Brothers Hernandez. In this 30th Anniversary Issue, Jaime shifts focus onto "Frogmouth" and her half sister Tonta whilst introducing some new characters. Gilbert takes one of his current characters into the Palomar milieu and brings back a number of the classic Palomar characters. This will be a much-anticipated homecoming for fans of the "classic" Love and Rockets of the 1980s. Thirty years in, Love and Rockets continues to surprise and delight. Softcover, 7 1/2-in. x 9-in., 104 pages, B&W. Mature Readers Cover price $14.99.

Volume 6 - 1st printing. By The Brothers Hernandez. Love and Rockets enters its fourth decade with the latest installment of this acclaimed graphic novel-format iteration, featuring both old friends and new faces, and some genuine surprises... The cover shows Gilbert's new star Killer in a pose and milieu that will bring back memories for long-time fans - imitating the hammer-wielding Luba in her adopted Palomar. That's because Killer has discovered that her great-grandmother Maria (Luba's mother) starred in a late 1950s crime movie, and begins to delve into the details of her family's twisted history. Complicating things is the fact that Luba's half-sister Fritz played Maria in an amped-up biopic version of her life, creating a postmodern alternate version of the classic "Poison River" which originally told Maria's story (in a tie-in release, see page 52 for the graphic novel version of this movie, Maria M. Part One)! In the other half of the book, Jaime continues to explore his intriguing new character Tonta: In "Fuck Summer," Tonta is talked into joining the summer swim team but can't figure out why the brand new swim coach knows her - so, with help from friends, she sets out to find the answer. Meanwhile, something far more sinister is brewing behind the scenes... Softcover, 7 1/2-in. x 9-in., 104 pages, B&W. Mature Readers Cover price $14.99.

Volume 7 - 1st printing. By The Brothers Hernandez. The seventh volume of Love and Rockets: New Storiesfinds Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez writing and drawing at the top of their game. In Jaime's stories, Maggie and Hopey take a road trip to visit a "sick friend" while Ray visits some old sick friends of his own. Gilbert offers a suite of stories, including a sweeping epic of derring-do in which Fritz as Morgan Le Fey teams up with Aladdin; a WWII sci-fi thriller and "Daughters and Mothers and Daughters," in which flashbacks to Luba's mother Maria reveal how old secrets affect their family today. Softcover, 7 1/2-in. x 9-in., 100 pages, B&W. Mature Readers Cover price $14.99.

Volume 8 - 1st printing. By The Brothers Hernandez. Jaime takes us to the punk reunion that Maggie & Hopey were road tripping to in the last issue where lots of old friends and enemies make appearances. Meanwhile, Gilbert serves up the second and concluding part of "The Magic Voyage of Aladdin," which establishes the rivalry of its two stars, Fritz and Mila. Who's Mila, you ask? You'll have to read Love and Rockets: New Stories No. 8 to find out! . Softcover, 7 1/2-in. x 9-in., 100 pages, B&W. Mature Readers Cover price $14.99.