Love and Rockets Reading Order: How to read Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez comics?
For a long time, I’ve heard of Love & Rockets. I recently decided to start reading the series, but didn’t know where to start. So, I did some research and here it is. I’ll probably update this guide during my readings, but it could take some time, so don’t be afraid to add more in the comments. Thanks.
What’s Love and Rockets?
Love and Rockets is a long running comic series written by Gilbert and Jamie Hernandez. It’s kind of an anthology, each brother working independently from the other, so there are two stories and more.
On Jaime side, it’s been one long story named Locas for the last decades. It’s about a group of punk rockers and their transition into adult life. On Gilbert side, there are more ongoing stories and some short stories too. The bigger one is Palomar & Luba, the inhabitants of Palomar, about a poor central American town and the inhabitants as they go on to live in America. And then, there are even more.
This article will not be updated anymore. Since we have launched a blog dedicated to comic book reading orders, you can find an up-to-date version of this Love & Rockets Reading Order here.
Love and Rockets Reading Order:
I. Love And Rockets, Volume 1 & 2
The easiest way to read Love and Rockets today seems to be with the Fantagraphics‘ collected editions.
a. “Locas” by Jaime Hernandez
Locas is, at the beginning, the punk and SciFi tale of Maggie, a young mechanic, her brash best friend and occasional lover Hopey, and their friends. It goes on to become a slice-of-life story of young people in a California town called Hoppers.
- Maggie the Mechanic (Vol.1)
- The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. (Vol. 2)
- Perla La Loca (Vol. 3)
- Penny Century (Vol. 4)
- Esperanza (Vol. 5)
- Angels and Magpies (Vol. 6, collects “God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls” and “The Love Bunglers” from New Stories, see below)
b. “Palomar & Luba” by Gilbert Hernandez
Palomar is the story of life in the fictional Mexican town of Palomar, a mix between soap-operatic telenovela and the magical realism.
- Heartbreak Soup (Palomar Book 1)
- Human Diastrophism (Palomar Book 2)
- Beyond Palomar (Palomar Book 3)
- Luba and Her Family (Luba Book 1)
- Ofelia (Luba Book 2)
- Three Sisters (Luba Book 3)
c. Short storie by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
- Amor Y Cohetes – All of the non-“Locas,” non-“Palomar” stories from Love and Rockets Volume 1, including Gilbert’s “BEM,” “Frida” and “My Love Book”; Jaime’s “Rocky and Fumble”; and more.
II. Love And Rockets, New Stories
After all that, there is Love and Rockets: New Stories. Since 2008, one volume a year collects new L&R stories from the Hernandez brothers.
- New Stories, volume 1 (2008)
- New Stories, volume 2 (2009)
- New Stories, volume 3 (2010)
- New Stories, volume 4 (2011)
- New Stories, volume 5 (2012)
- New Stories, volume 6 (2013)
- New Stories, volume 7 (2015)
- New Stories, volume 8 (2016)
If you only want Jaime’s stories from this period, they are collected in other volumes :
Those two books are also in the Angels and Magpies book.
III. Love And Rockets, volume 4
In 2017, Love & Rockets came back as a new ongoing series. More to come.
Bonus. THE FRITZ B-MOVIE BOOKS
These standalone graphic novels were never serialized in Love and Rockets but each is presented as a fictional, hard-boiled “B-movie” starring Gilbert’s actress character (and Luba’s sister), Fritz.
