Angels And Magpies: The Love And Rockets Library Vol. 13 (LOVE & ROCKETS LIBRARY JAIME GN)

This is one of the best stories of life. It can be intimidating to tackle Love and Rockets but my advice to you is dive in the way you meet someone at any point in life. You meet friends from childhood and know them continuously or sometimes with long breaks and you run into and catch up. You might meet someone much older and learn about them in reverse or in a very nonsequential order about them . That’s life and that’s how you can dive in to a rich world like Love and Rockets. So sit down and get to know them, it’s a great story.

Great!

This is an interesting collection in that it features some of Jaime's best work and some of his worst. Normally, I'm a fan of this series format, but in this case I'd recommend the standalone hardcovers over the versions in this edition.‘La Maggie La Loca’ and ‘Gold Diggers of 1969’: Pretty sublime stuff, highly recommended. Together, these answer the question, ‘What if Maggie were a syndicated newspaper comic strip character?’ Originally serialized in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, ‘La Maggie La Loca’ is presented here uncensored and expanded, across 24 single-page installments. Remember when Ray was looking for Maggie in ‘Esperanza’ but she was on vacation? Well, here she is visiting her old friend wrestler Rena Tetañon, who's now living on a remote island somewhere in Latin America. Unfortunately, the original color of this strip has been replaced by computer-generated greyscale, which in some panels is dark enough to obscure the text. Also, in its first printing, one page fell out of sequence during the book's production, screwing up the story. (Read page 19 *before* page 17 in order to follow the plot as Jaime intended it. This also affects ‘Gold Diggers’, which runs immediately beneath.) ‘Gold Diggers’ features Li'l Maggie at her most adorable; it's really a hidden gem of the series, so simple and universal. It's in B&W like a daily newspaper strip but stacked in two tiers to tell a continuous story across the same 24 pages. These two stories are somewhat hard to find outside of this collection; the simplest option is to pick up a copy of L&R Vol. II #20. They can also be found individually reprinted in other non-L&R books.‘God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls’: Horrendous. Next! (No soup for you.) Seriously, this is kind of a different animal than most of Jaime's other stories. I think it's highly skippable. It does address what's been happening with Penny Century, who'd fallen out of the series for a while, but does so in the most annoying way possible. I really think this story has some major problems, though some people apparently like it; at any rate, it seems more suited to the longterm fan. Once again, we're treated to an expanded or restored ‘director's cut’, in this case adding 30 new pages, including a new chapter. The additions are good, but they don't alter the story's DNA. The hardcover edition includes five ‘faux’ covers for issues #33-37 of a fictional Ti-Girls superhero comic (pronounced "tie" as in "tigers") in full color, one per chapter; here, they're presented in greyscale. Generally, this is a pretty crammed, ink-heavy comic, and I think it looks better at a larger size, with a little splash of color.‘Love Bunglers’: Excellent. I can't even properly review this because it's so universally praised. It's one of those books. The only downside is some very controversial subject matter. Part of me feels very manipulated by the inclusion of this kind of material, but it seems well-handled and true to a basic childhood experience. (If you read this in its original context, in New Stories 3, Gilbert's half was even more heinous, like a one-two knockout punch.) This one is easy to enjoy whether you're brand-new to the series or more experienced. Again though, insofar as this printing, it actually looks a little worse here than it did in New Stories 3-4. Why do I say that? I think it has something to do with dot gain, making the lettering and details occasionally look thick and indistinct. The hardcover may have some of the same issues, but its large size makes it less noticeable. It's a handsome book and includes some very effective chapter formatting that got altered slightly for this edition to suit the Library series format. As chapter divisions are not usually a part of this series, those dividers come off looking a little wonky here.Outside of the page misordering affecting the first two stories, my chief complaint would be the use of computer-generated greyscale to replace the color components of the original stories. Color is unusual to this series, so how to handle it is an open question; presumably it's too expensive to incorporate color into these books, though that would have been ideal. Otherwise, I like what was done with ‘Maggie and Hopey Color Fun’ in the ‘Penny Century’ collection: The coloring was simply omitted, allowing readers a better look at Jaime's original line art. In general, I don't see much wrong with that approach, as it gives readers something different and unique, compared to what they can find elsewhere.One final thought: Did you know you can get a subscription to Love and Rockets, Vol. IV (from Fantagraphics) for not much more than the list price of this book?

Xavier Hernández es uno de los mejores artistas de comics de la historia, esta recopilación es indispensable en toda colección... accesible y con gran contenido

Half of this book is some silly superhero stuff with Penny Century and the gang. Silly, but part of that universe, I guess. Everything is of course rendered in that signature Xaime style, so if you like women in tights drawn from every angle, you will like this. If not, just get The Love Bunglers stand alone.

Pois é. Provavelmente minha HQ favorita em qualquer gênero. Talvez seja difícil o apelo para quem não conhece: sempre foi basicamente a história de um grupo de amigas, Maggie, Hopey, Izzy e Penny - mas, com o tempo, foi focando mais e mais na Maggie.Leio há quase 30 anos (saiu no Brasil pela primeira vez pela Record em 1991) e não lembro de uma HQ que tenha me emocionado e deslumbrado mais com suas histórias e personagens humanos, um gibi no qual os sentimentos e as inter-relações são o mais importante. Dramas, tragédias, robôs, humor e até alguns super-heróis se cruzam nas tramas.Nesta edição de 260 páginas há três histórias principais: uma em que Maggie, mais velha, reencontra sua amiga, a lutadora e aventureira Rena Titañon; outra que é uma saga de super-heróis (super-heroínas, no caso) cheia de ideias malucas, metalinguagem, porradaria e conceitos pós-modernos, com uma resolução que talvez explique algumas coisas dos quase 40 anos da série; e, finalmente, uma história em que Maggie, já madura, busca mais uma vez pelo amor em meio a alguns chocantes e tocantes flashbacks. Foi essa última história, com um final de estraçalhar coração, que me levou às lágrimas. Em apenas uma página, o gibi te surpreende, incomoda, faz rir e faz chorar. Incrível.Cacete, como é legal uma obra de arte que te faz chorar e continua a surpreender mesmo após três décadas. Preciso ler algo mais bobo pra acalmar o espírito. Cadê meus gibis da Marvel?! Jaime Hernandez continua o mestre e se você nunca leu as histórias das LÔCAS em LOVE AND ROCKETS, leia.

La collection "The Love And Rockets Library" regroupe sous forme d'épais livres à couverture souple la totalité de l'oeuvre des frères HERNANDEZ pour leur magazine "Love And Rockets". "Angels And Magpies" est ainsi le 6è bouquin regroupant les épisodes de la série "Locas" animée par Jaime HERNANDEZ depuis... 1982. C'est d'ailleurs quleque chose d'unique (à ma connaissance) dans l'univers de la BD mondiale que cette série qui vieillit avec son auteur qui lui a consacré toute sa carrière. Nous suivons ainsi Margarita Luisa “Maggie” CHASCARRILLO, à la fois dans sa vie dans le "Barrio" de Los Angeles où elle fut une fan de punk rock au tout début des années 1980 mais aussi dans des aventures parallèles, dans lesquelles elle est mécanicienne dans un univers de science-fiction et de super-héros. Les deux fils sont étroitement liés et ce n'es n'est pas le moindre des charmes de la proposition de Jaime HERNANDEZ, nourri au biberon des classiques des comics états-uniens des années 1960 (Archie, DC Comics, LEE/KIRBY etc.) autant qu'à celui des GERMS, DEAD KENNEDYS, BLACK FLAG et autres punk rock bands locaux. A quoi il faut bien entendu ajouter la double culture états-unienne et mexicaine. L'ensemble, en tout cas pour celles et ceux de ma génération qui sont "tombés dedans" dès le début ou presque, est terriblement plaisant et addictif ! Que devient Maggie ? Que devient Hopey ? Globalement, on est à l'échelon des cinq étoiles amazoniennes.Ceci dit, j'avoue ne pas avoir tout de suite repéré que ce livre contient en fait la réédition en un seul recueil de couverture souple des deux albums "hard cover" précédemment publiés (...et achetés ainsi que dûment commentés par mes soins) :- ' God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls ' (juillet 2012),- ' The Love Bunglers ' (avril 2014),- avec en préambule l'histoire intitulée “La Maggie La Loca”, pré-publiée dans le New York Times et reprise dans le magasine L&R #20 (juin 2007), en lien avec une autre histoire "Gold Diggers of 1969".“La Maggie La Loca” voit Maggie, maintenant devenue une rondelette quadragénaire, pas mariée et sans enfant, rendre visite à son amie Queen Rena Titañon, ex star de la lucha libre, qui vit retirée sur une île. Là, Maggie va rencontrer Delfino et ses amis, dont Techo, et va vivre une de ces aventures totalement "space" dont elle seule a le secret et qui font son charme. Cette histoire est en trois bandes par pages, en "nuances de gris". En bas de chaque page, se déroule l'histoire "Gold Diggers of 1969", en deux bandes, noir et blanc strictement, et dans un style graphique simplifié, "cartoony" ou de comic strip gaguesque, en mode "ligne claire" du "space age" propre à Jaime HERNANDEZ, bien entendu. Il s'agit de la prime enfance de Maggie, avec sa maman Quina (et son papa peu présent) et les naissances de sa soeur Esther et de son frère Calvin.'God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls' est l'occasion pour Jaime de remettre en lumière le côté "comic geek" de Maggie pour ranimer une ancienne équipe de super-héroïnes, qui va se mettre à la recherche de Penny Century, une bonne amie de Maggie mais qui a pété un cable et qui est passé du côté obscur... La jeune super-héroïne Angel, amie de Maggie, est bien en évidence dans cet "arc" en cinq chapitres qui rend hommage de manière totalement loufoque aux golden et silver ages des comic books de super-héros tout en se situant, tant que faire se peut, dans la "continuité" de 'Locas' !'The Love Bunglers' est une histoire beaucoup plus sombre, ancrée dans la réalité de la destinée tragique de Calvin, petit frère de Maggie, victime lorsqu'il était tout gamin d'un viol. Parallèlement, une Maggie quinquagénaire vit sa vie on/off avec Ray DOMINGUEZ, mais voit aussi son soupirant Reno... En flashbacks, on en apprend également de belles sur Sr. CHASCARRILLO, le papa "absent" de Maggie et ses frère et soeur. God and Science: Return of the Ti-GirlsThe Love Bunglers

Boa leitura, bom enredo, estórias interessantes.