To a very great extent, Love and Rockets is synonymous with Hoppers' Maggie & Hopey and Palomar's Luba & Carmen & Heraclio & Tonantzin... but there was always more to L and R than that. Amor y Cohetes finally collects together in one convenient package all the non-Maggie and non-Palomar stories by all three Hernandez Brothers from that classic first, 50-issue Love and Rockets series—a dizzying array of styles and approaches that re-confirms these groundbreaking cartoonists' place in the history of comics.

In these classic "Locas" stories, Jaime drops a narrative bomb on Hopey (and us) in "Wigwam Bam"; Maggie contends with her inner demons, a murderous hooker, and an amorous lady wrestler; and Maggie, getting married?

How do you follow up a one-two punch like Jaime Hernandez’s stunning two-part masterpiece “The Love Bunglers” from LRNS  #3 and #4, which sent Maggie and Ray’s relationship in a startling new direction, as well as providing some mind-blowing revelations about Maggie’s (and her family’s) past? If you’re Jaime, you deftly move sideways and switch focus to other characters, specifically Ray’s ex, the rambunctious “Frogmouth.” In “Crime Raiders International Mobsters and Executioners,” Muneca, the Frogmouth’s half-sister, comes to visit for a weekend and sees what kind of life the Frog Princess is living with Reno and Borneo ― as well as a brand new character or two. On the other-brother side, Gilbert Hernandez celebrates the 30th anniversary by bringing one of his current characters (“Killer,” granddaughter to the legendary Luba) into the Palomar milieu in a story that showcases a fictionalized “movie” Palomar (starring Fritz as a combination of Luba and Tonantzín), even as it brings back a number of the classic Palomar characters for real. 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.

All-new stories featuring Jaime’s Maggie and Ray, plus Gilbert’s Fritz and the “Sad Girl.”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 (ofHigh 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.

  Five women stand in a police lineup; four of them are garishly dressed, impressively endowed superwomen ― perfectly normal, because this is, after all, the cover of a comic book. A closer look, however, reveals a fifth woman who seems thoroughly out of place ― mousy, in bathrobe and curlers, smoking a cigarette, she appears to have been suddenly yanked from her breakfast table. Surely, this diminutive, dowdy woman is here by mistake ― or is she? From the very first cover of the very first issue of Love and Rockets in 1982, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez have created artwork that has subverted, contradicted and celebrated the history of the comic book medium, inverting familiar tropes and creating some of the most iconic images in comics over the past three and a half decades, inviting fans and readers into their world. Amazingly, many of the covers created by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez for the various iterations of Love and Rockets over the past 35 years have never been collected or have only been reprinted in black-and-white. Love and Rockets: The Covers will not only rectify this problem, but present them without trade dress (logos, marketing hype, etc.), allowing the original cover illustrations to communicate on their own.

Picking up right after Perla La Loca, the third volume of the definitive “Maggie” series repackaging, this compilation of stories from Jaime Hernandez’s solo comic Penny Century and his subsequent return to Love and Rockets (Volume II) charts the further lives of his beloved “Locas.”

But first... wrestling! Penny Century starts off with a blast with “Whoa, Nellie!,” a unique graphic novelette in which Maggie, who has settled in with her pro-wrestler aunt for a while, experiences that wild and woolly world first-hand.

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" is the tale of a disaffected young bombshell actress nicknamed "Killer" and the web of jealousy, gossip, notoriety and mystery that surrounds her. 

The 25th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this, the first of three volumes collecting the adventures of the spunky Maggie, her annoying best friend and sometimes lover Hopey, and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie's weirdo mentor Izzy as well as the wrestler Rena Titanon and Maggie’s handsome love interest, Rand Race... 'Maggie the Mechanic' collects the earliest, punkiest, most heavily sci-fi stories of Maggie and her circle of friends, and you can see the artist (who drew like an angel from the very first panel) refine his approach - Despite these strong shifts in tone, the stunning art and razor sharp characterizations keep this collection consistent, and enthralling throughout.

Jaime Hernandez's emotionally powerful stories in the last issue of Love and Rockets: New Stories ("The Love Bunglers" and "Browntown") were among the most critically-acclaimed comics of 2010. In this new issue, Jaime ups the ante even more. The final chapter of "The Love Bunglers" sends things hurtling to a stunning conclusion over the breathtaking and heartrending final ten pages. Nestled in the midst of this is the masterful "Return for Me," a sequel of sorts to "Browntown" in which teenage Maggie returns to Hoppers and a new life. On the Gilbert side, things lead off with the 35-page cover story "King Vampire": Two lovable teens, Cecil and Trini, want to join a local vampire club, but real vampires show up and things get deadly serious. Cecil loves it but Trini has her doubts about going all the way. In "And Then Reality Kicks In," a 15-page walk-and-talk of complex and layered dialogue that may be Gilbert's finest piece of writing yet.

In this eighth annual volume of New Stories, Jaime takes us to the punk reunion that Maggie & Hopey were road tripping to last issue. Will Hopey actually show up, or will Maggie have to go it alone? Hell, will anybody show up? Lots of old friends and enemies make appearances in the second chapter of this latest Locas epic. Also, what happened to Princess Animus? The film may have broke but the movie was most definitely not over. All this and Tonta, too! 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? And to make matters worse, who are the Fritz lookalikes that are coming out of the woodwork? You’ll have to read Love and Rockets: New Stories No. 8 to find out!

In this eighth annual volume of New Stories, Jaime takes us to the punk reunion that Maggie & Hopey were road tripping to last issue. Will Hopey actually show up, or will Maggie have to go it alone? Hell, will anybody show up? Lots of old friends and enemies make appearances in the second chapter of this latest Locas epic. Also, what happened to Princess Animus? The film may have broke but the movie was most definitely not over. All this and Tonta, too! 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? And to make matters worse, who are the Fritz lookalikes that are coming out of the woodwork? You’ll have to read Love and Rockets: New Stories No. 8 to find out!

How do you follow up a one-two punch like Jaime Hernandez’s stunning two-part masterpiece “The Love Bunglers” from LRNS  #3 and #4, which sent Maggie and Ray’s relationship in a startling new direction, as well as providing some mind-blowing revelations about Maggie’s (and her family’s) past? If you’re Jaime, you deftly move sideways and switch focus to other characters, specifically Ray’s ex, the rambunctious “Frogmouth.” In “Crime Raiders International Mobsters and Executioners,” Muneca, the Frogmouth’s half-sister, comes to visit for a weekend and sees what kind of life the Frog Princess is living with Reno and Borneo ― as well as a brand new character or two. On the other-brother side, Gilbert Hernandez celebrates the 30th anniversary by bringing one of his current characters (“Killer,” granddaughter to the legendary Luba) into the Palomar milieu in a story that showcases a fictionalized “movie” Palomar (starring Fritz as a combination of Luba and Tonantzín), even as it brings back a number of the classic Palomar characters for real. 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.

The seventh annual volume of Love and Rockets: New Stories, the most important and enduring alternative comics series in the history of the medium, finds Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez writing and drawing at the top of their game. In Jaime’s stories, Maggie and Hopey take a much-needed break from their humdrum domestic lives and go on a road trip to visit a “sick friend.” And, when the cat’s away, Ray visits some old, sick friends of his own. Plus Tonta’s nutty family! Gilbert offers a suite of stories, including “The Magic Voyage of Aladdin,” a sweeping epic of derring-do in which Morgan Le Fey (Fritz) teams up with Aladdin to stop the evil Circle from obtaining the magic lamp; “The Golem Suit,” a WWII sci-fi thriller starring “Killer”; and “Daughters and Mothers and Daughters,” in which flashbacks to Luba’s mother Maria reveal how ugly secrets of the past affect their family today.

The 25th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this, the first of three volumes collecting the adventures of the spunky Maggie, her annoying best friend and sometimes lover Hopey, and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie's weirdo mentor Izzy as well as the wrestler Rena Titanon and Maggie’s handsome love interest, Rand Race... 'Maggie the Mechanic' collects the earliest, punkiest, most heavily sci-fi stories of Maggie and her circle of friends, and you can see the artist (who drew like an angel from the very first panel) refine his approach - Despite these strong shifts in tone, the stunning art and razor sharp characterizations keep this collection consistent, and enthralling throughout.

Jaime Hernandez's emotionally powerful stories in the last issue of Love and Rockets: New Stories ("The Love Bunglers" and "Browntown") were among the most critically-acclaimed comics of 2010. In this new issue, Jaime ups the ante even more. The final chapter of "The Love Bunglers" sends things hurtling to a stunning conclusion over the breathtaking and heartrending final ten pages. Nestled in the midst of this is the masterful "Return for Me," a sequel of sorts to "Browntown" in which teenage Maggie returns to Hoppers and a new life. On the Gilbert side, things lead off with the 35-page cover story "King Vampire": Two lovable teens, Cecil and Trini, want to join a local vampire club, but real vampires show up and things get deadly serious. Cecil loves it but Trini has her doubts about going all the way. In "And Then Reality Kicks In," a 15-page walk-and-talk of complex and layered dialogue that may be Gilbert's finest piece of writing yet.

In the latest installment of the long-running alternative comic series, Maria’s kids, grandkids and great-grandkids create rival movie adaptations of her life (i.e., Gilbert Hernandez’s Poison River story arc), while Jaime Hernandez’s teen character Tonta tries to figure out how she knows her swim coach.

All-new stories featuring Jaime’s Maggie and Ray, plus Gilbert’s Fritz and the “Sad Girl.”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 (ofHigh 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.

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" is the tale of a disaffected young bombshell actress nicknamed "Killer" and the web of jealousy, gossip, notoriety and mystery that surrounds her. 

This volume collects the adventures of the spunky Maggie; her annoying, pixie-ish best friend and sometime lover Hopey; and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie's weirdo mentor Izzy―as well as the aging but still heroic wrestler Rena Titanon and Maggie's handsome love interest, Rand Race. After the sci-fi trappings of his earliest stories (as seen in Maggie the Mechanic, the first volume in this series), Hernandez refined his approach, settling on the more naturalistic environment of the fictional Los Angeles barrio, Hoppers, and the lives of the young Mexican-Americans and punk rockers who live there. A central story and one of Jaime's absolute peaks is "The Death of Speedy." Such is Jaime's mastery that even though the end of the story is telegraphed from the very title, the downhill spiral of Speedy, the local heartthrob, is utterly compelling and ultimately quite surprising. Also in this volume, Maggie begins her on-again off-again romance with Ray D., leading to friction and an eventual separation from Hopey.

The "director's cut" edition of the sprawling super-hero epic from Love and Rockets.

Originally serialized in Love and Rockets New Stories, “Ti-Girls Adventures” managed to be both a rollickingly creative super-hero joyride (featuring three separate super-teams and over two dozen characters) that ranged from the other side of the universe to Maggie’s shabby apartment, and a genuinely dramatic fable about madness, grief, and motherhood as Penny Century’s decades-long quest to become a genuine super-heroine are finally, and tragically, fulfilled.

In addition to introducing a plethora of wild new characters, God and Science brings in many older characters from Jaime’s universe, some from seemingly throwaway shorter strips and some from Maggie’s day-to-day world (including some real surprises). The main heroine of the story, forming a bridge between the “realistic” Maggie stories and the super-heroic extravaganza is “Angel,” Maggie’s sweet-tempered and athletic new roommate and best friend, and now herself an aspiring super-heroine.