Penny Century (LOVE & ROCKETS LIBRARY JAIME GN)

Some great stories, including the minseries Whoah Nellie! about women's wrestling, and of course more Locas stories and the backstory of Penny Century.

Jaime really lost the plot for a while after the conclusion of L&R vol. 1. This is easily the weakest collection in the series and is a bit of a chore to get through - but it's totally worth it because he got a second wind with L&R Vol II and then "New Stories" volume 3 onward, all of which contain some of the best work that he's ever done, EVER. It's worth it to read through this volume to get the important contextual connecting stories, and there are still a few gems like "Home school."

I like Penny and the Loco Chicas. The stories in this book made it clear what happened to Penny to make her what she became.

If you like this series then this is a good addition to the collection. I especially like these big new multi-issue books they are in, and the covers are also better than the originals. More classy.

It's Jaime Hernandez. That's all you need.

I'd recommend this volume for new fans. I got into L&R starting with New Stories (e.g., The Love Bunglers) and am trying to work my way gradually backwards. This one's easier to jump into than the book immediately following, ‘Esperanza’, and it helps prepare those later stories.By this point, the Hernandez Brothers had wrapped up the series’ initial run and were forging ahead with brand-new solo comics like ‘Penny Century’, still based largely around the same characters. I'm not into pro wrestling, but ‘Whoa, Nellie!’ was a surprisingly strong beginning. This seems like a classic Jaime storytelling technique, where new characters*—in this case, a female wrestling tag-team duo—are used to shed light on well-established ones in a way that's easy for anyone to enjoy, new readers or old. This is followed by a story from the one-shot ‘Maggie and Hopey Color Fun’, where Hopey calls on Maggie on a Sunday to help repair a car so that her brother and his girlfriend can drive to Vegas for a quickie wedding, but Hopey's more interested in seducing the girlfriend. They all wind up at a swanky pool party, where we're introduced to Norma (ex-wife of millionaire H.R. Costigan) and her daughter Negra, two of the book's other key players. Through this and other stories, I got a lot more insight into Maggie and Hopey's relationship than I'd had previously.The rest of the book does a nice balancing act between the various characters. Ray seems to be a recent transplant to Los Angeles, goaded into moving there by Penny, who's now largely ignoring him. Maggie's doing a bit of work for Norma and winds up also chauffeuring Negra; her lack of direction and doubts about her marriage are nagging at her. Hopey tries her hand as an election worker, while feeling estranged from Maggie and rebuffing advances from a new male suitor, Guy Goforth. There are several strong ‘flashback’-style stories that give us key insights into the characters and their relationships, including ‘Home School’ (drawn in a Dennis-the-Menace/Peanuts style) where we see a young Izzy embracing the role of babysitter to an even younger Maggie, mostly as an excuse to go smoking in the park, and ‘Everybody Loves Me, Baby’ which traces the evolution of Maggie's relationship to her mysterious husband ‘Top Cat’ Tony Chase, from first meeting to proposal. (We also catch Ray's first glimpse of Vivian in “One More Ladies‘ Man”.) Around it all, Penny appears as sort of a gossamer-type figure, flitting in and out of our character's lives, until the book's closing, an origin story of sorts, ‘Bay of Threes’, which does a fine job of tying together other plot threads, particularly the story of her relationship with H.R. Costigan.My one complaint with this book is that Jaime is extremely fond of letting his characters lose themselves in reverie and soliloquy, every so often for pages on end. It happens a lot with Ray, where it sort of works as a defining aspect of his character and his narratives. It happens at least twice with Maggie, and these ‘introspective jams’ wear thin even if they're interesting in small doses and help convey the characters’ interior lives.*UPDATE: Whoops! It turns out that wrestling partners Xo and Gina were featured prominently in the book immediately before this, ‘Perla La Loca’ (‘Chester Square’). Suffice it to say, you don't need to read those earlier stories to enjoy this one, as it's written in a very self-contained fashion, like an origin story.

Brilliant dialogue and artwork.

I have two more books to catch up with this series, so I’m so glad I finished this one. Whoever compiles these really knows how to end them!

Only recently discovered Jaime Hernandez' Locas stories from love and rockets - they're fantastic. Entertaining and touching, you get a real sense of following a group of real people through their lives. And really makes me miss my younger days of being reckless and carefree. This is part of a series of complete reprints starting with the book Maggie the Mechanic, so take care to read them in the correct order. I quickly went through the whole series and was very sad to reach the end.

These reprints are well priced and a good way to build up your collection without paying a fortune.The output of these guys is unreal and once you start reading you will be hooked! :)

Simplemente uno de los mejores cómics "independientes" de toda la historia. Personajes entrañables, historias que van de lo fantástico a lo cotidiano y que te atrapan desde las primeras páginas. Qué decir del arte de Xaime Hernández, es simplemente hermoso. Muy recomendable.