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Love and Rockets
Comics Dementia
Comics Dementia collects unexpected treasures, oddities, and rarities from outposts of the Love and Rockets galaxy, by one of Earth's greatest living cartoonists, Gilbert Hernandez. Saints, sinners, and the Candide-like Roy mingle in jungles, in fables, in outer space: in cocktail lounges and living rooms. Ditko meets Melville meets Bob Hope—but the party really starts bumping when the Alfred E. Neuman of the L&R-verse, Errata Stigmata, makes her entrance. Many of these stories haven’t been available since their original appearance in comic shops in the 1990s.
192 pages, Paperback
First published February 3, 2016
10 people are currently reading
151 people want to read
About the author
Gilbert Hernández
431 books419 followersGilbert and his brother Jaime Hernández mostly publish their separate storylines together in Love And Rockets and are often referred to as 'Los Bros Hernandez'.
Gilbert Hernandez is an American cartoonist best known for the Palomar and Heartbreak Soup stories in Love and Rockets, the groundbreaking alternative comic series he created with his brothers Jaime and Mario. Raised in Oxnard, California in a lively household shaped by comics, rock music and a strong creative streak, he developed an early fascination with graphic storytelling. His influences ranged from Marvel legends Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko to the humor and clarity of Hank Ketcham and the Archie line, as well as the raw energy of the underground comix that entered his life through his brother Mario.
In 1981 the brothers self-published the first issue of Love and Rockets, which quickly drew the attention of Fantagraphics Books. The series became a defining work of the independent comics movement, notable for its punk spirit, emotional depth and multiracial cast. Gilbert's Palomar stories, centered on the residents of a fictional Latin American village, combined magic realism with soap-opera intimacy and grew into an ambitious narrative cycle admired for its complex characters and bold storytelling. Works like Human Diastrophism helped solidify his reputation as one of the medium's most inventive voices.
Across periods when Love and Rockets was on hiatus, Hernandez built out a parallel body of work, creating titles such as New Love, Luba, and Luba's Comics and Stories, as well as later graphic novels including Sloth and The Troublemakers. He also collaborated with Peter Bagge on the short-lived series Yeah! and continued to explore new directions in Love and Rockets: New Stories.
Celebrated for his portrayal of independent women and for his distinctive blend of realism and myth, Hernandez remains a major figure in contemporary comics and a lasting influence on generations of artists.
Gilbert Hernandez is an American cartoonist best known for the Palomar and Heartbreak Soup stories in Love and Rockets, the groundbreaking alternative comic series he created with his brothers Jaime and Mario. Raised in Oxnard, California in a lively household shaped by comics, rock music and a strong creative streak, he developed an early fascination with graphic storytelling. His influences ranged from Marvel legends Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko to the humor and clarity of Hank Ketcham and the Archie line, as well as the raw energy of the underground comix that entered his life through his brother Mario.
In 1981 the brothers self-published the first issue of Love and Rockets, which quickly drew the attention of Fantagraphics Books. The series became a defining work of the independent comics movement, notable for its punk spirit, emotional depth and multiracial cast. Gilbert's Palomar stories, centered on the residents of a fictional Latin American village, combined magic realism with soap-opera intimacy and grew into an ambitious narrative cycle admired for its complex characters and bold storytelling. Works like Human Diastrophism helped solidify his reputation as one of the medium's most inventive voices.
Across periods when Love and Rockets was on hiatus, Hernandez built out a parallel body of work, creating titles such as New Love, Luba, and Luba's Comics and Stories, as well as later graphic novels including Sloth and The Troublemakers. He also collaborated with Peter Bagge on the short-lived series Yeah! and continued to explore new directions in Love and Rockets: New Stories.
Celebrated for his portrayal of independent women and for his distinctive blend of realism and myth, Hernandez remains a major figure in contemporary comics and a lasting influence on generations of artists.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
February 5, 2022
This was a lot of odds and ends from Gilbert Hernandez. Some of it was interesting but a lot of it wasn't my cup of tea. The four page story where each page had 55 panels was amazing, though.
November 29, 2023
Collects a bunch of random strips from Love and Rockets - basically anything that wasn't the Palomar storyline with Luba and her sisters throughout the years. Also stuff Gilbert contributed to various comic anthologies like Mome and Zero Zero. I'm not sure the exact dates but I think it's as late as 2016 and as early as the late 80s. Most are 90s.
One the recurring characters is a very round character named Roy. Those one are pretty funny. Roy is dating a girl named Judith, has fights with a brain-sucking monster called Froat, ends up in Hell for a while after a heroin overdose. Very zanny stuff. Really this volume could have been named after Roy.
Shout Ramirez and Dinky are two superheroines who use their incredible quadriceps to jump around like early Superman.
There's one small strip of a dialogue between Seth and Gary Groth about how people undervalue great art and over consume cheap ready-made content.
Some strips felt like Gilbert was just filling space and didn't really have any ideas. The most obvious was the meta (8 1/2 is referenced) strip about not having anything to write about.
At times some of the zany stuff felt like Chester Brown's Happy Clown comic.
Take out some of the boring strips and this is an easy 4-star comic for me. But overall it's a fans-only release.
One the recurring characters is a very round character named Roy. Those one are pretty funny. Roy is dating a girl named Judith, has fights with a brain-sucking monster called Froat, ends up in Hell for a while after a heroin overdose. Very zanny stuff. Really this volume could have been named after Roy.
Shout Ramirez and Dinky are two superheroines who use their incredible quadriceps to jump around like early Superman.
There's one small strip of a dialogue between Seth and Gary Groth about how people undervalue great art and over consume cheap ready-made content.
Some strips felt like Gilbert was just filling space and didn't really have any ideas. The most obvious was the meta (8 1/2 is referenced) strip about not having anything to write about.
At times some of the zany stuff felt like Chester Brown's Happy Clown comic.
Take out some of the boring strips and this is an easy 4-star comic for me. But overall it's a fans-only release.
April 30, 2016
A collection of Gilbert's shorter pieces, or non-Palomar/Luba/Fritz narratives, that haven't yet seen publication in the latest format from Fantagraphics. There are some selections going back to the first volume of L&R, but most here are stories from the 2000s. The most prominent character or storyline in this volume is Roy. And these are fun, sarcastic, and self-reflexive stories, nothing as heavy or labyrinthine as much of his other narratives (specifically the Fritz stories) in the L&R series. My favorites of this collection are when Gilbert incorporates himself into the stories. He's done this before, of course, but this is just more of the fun.
July 22, 2018
Constantly inventive with stories sneaking from unforeseen angles. Comedy and pathos abound. Gilbert does great things with sparse lines and with pages of laborious art. Easy to read; rather, a thrill to read. My first full exposure to Hernandez, it's clear why he's such an influence on Indy artists . Put me in mind of Evan Dorkin, Seth, Brown and the Peep Show crossovers. The love shines from these pages. Have you any advice on which book to follow this up with?
August 28, 2020
Gilbert’s non-Palomar short work is fantastic sci-fi infused weirdness.
July 25, 2018
Comics can be strange, they can defy logic even within the realm of comic book reality, and they can do it without just shoving their own opinion down your throat. That’s how I grew up, reading good shit — being ASKED to THINK for myself. Like good theatre.
Some of these tales are arguably pointless, overly horrid, or stupid. But they’re also true to themselves and to the artist (great little strip featuring himself too).
This is how Los Bros conjures classic characters who become archetypes or windows into ourselves (well, those of us with imaginations at least). These characters won’t be what you WANT them to be necessarily, rather explorations in the human and inhuman alike (and vice versa inside of both).
Some of these tales are arguably pointless, overly horrid, or stupid. But they’re also true to themselves and to the artist (great little strip featuring himself too).
This is how Los Bros conjures classic characters who become archetypes or windows into ourselves (well, those of us with imaginations at least). These characters won’t be what you WANT them to be necessarily, rather explorations in the human and inhuman alike (and vice versa inside of both).
May 3, 2017
This is an interesting collection of short stories, that mainly showcases Gilbert's endless creativity. Some of it is a bit silly, and you have to wonder if it was made just to fill pages, but mostly it's good stuff. Definitely a book for people who are already fans of Gilbert's work. I would not recommend this for a first time reader.
October 8, 2016
More strangeness from Beto Hernandez. If you like his stuff, you should like this.
September 28, 2022
In my last Love and Rockets review, Amor Y Cohetes, I mistakenly said that was the only anthology volume for that series. Comics Dementia, is another - however this one is a bit different because it's written only by Gilbert Hernandez. And I got to admit, I liked this a lot better.
It's still an anthology of stories, most of them very short, some of them connected yet have no linear narrative structure and all of them very much "in tone" for Love and Rockets in my opinion. Where Amor Y Cohetes felt very underground and weird, this one feels more polished and structured. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely plenty of weirdness to go around, but the stories themselves actually made some kind of sense, where in the previous volume, I had to skim a lot of it because it was just kind of ... comics babble. I found Gilbert to be exploratory in this volume, but not frivolously exploratory - if that makes sense.
The art is also a step up from the previous volume where it's much closer to what we get in the main Palomar series - though some stories do have a variance in style. For the most part, it all has that pop art sensibility, and looks pretty damn good for most of the book.
This was... interesting. I wouldn't say it ever approaches the heights of the Palomar series (not to say anything about Jaime's side of things) but it has some interesting tid bits that may interest you. I would say, if you're a big fan of the brothers more than their main stories, this is one that you might want to check out.
It's still an anthology of stories, most of them very short, some of them connected yet have no linear narrative structure and all of them very much "in tone" for Love and Rockets in my opinion. Where Amor Y Cohetes felt very underground and weird, this one feels more polished and structured. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely plenty of weirdness to go around, but the stories themselves actually made some kind of sense, where in the previous volume, I had to skim a lot of it because it was just kind of ... comics babble. I found Gilbert to be exploratory in this volume, but not frivolously exploratory - if that makes sense.
The art is also a step up from the previous volume where it's much closer to what we get in the main Palomar series - though some stories do have a variance in style. For the most part, it all has that pop art sensibility, and looks pretty damn good for most of the book.
This was... interesting. I wouldn't say it ever approaches the heights of the Palomar series (not to say anything about Jaime's side of things) but it has some interesting tid bits that may interest you. I would say, if you're a big fan of the brothers more than their main stories, this is one that you might want to check out.
January 10, 2018
As the title says: "comics dementia", in a nutshell while reading you must expect the unexpected. Climax of all the crazy /"out of the blue" pages of love and rockets in one volume.
Good balance between comics giving you the feeling "WHAT THE F***?!" and some wisdom making you think "HO that's clever!!!". An advice read it with a distant mind to go with the flow that ain't there.
If you take the time to enjoy the facial expressions and the atmosphere of each and every bubble it can take you few days to go through the book when reading before to sleep.
I bought 3 other books of Gilbert after this one: what a talent this man (family) has!!
Good balance between comics giving you the feeling "WHAT THE F***?!" and some wisdom making you think "HO that's clever!!!". An advice read it with a distant mind to go with the flow that ain't there.
If you take the time to enjoy the facial expressions and the atmosphere of each and every bubble it can take you few days to go through the book when reading before to sleep.
I bought 3 other books of Gilbert after this one: what a talent this man (family) has!!
April 21, 2024
Comics Dementia is only tangentially connected to Gilbert Hernandez's corner of Love and Rockets, collecting mostly some loose odds and ends from his contributions to anthology books like MOME, Measles, Zero Zero, and more. The strips here aren't nearly as out there as Beto's later spin-off works like the "Fritz B-Movie" comics or Blubber, but you can really see the gateway into his transition into more raunchier and outlandish stuff here.
Highlights for me here include: "Extend the Hand of Love to All Who Can Use It", "30,000 Hours to Kill" and "The Naked Cosmos".
Highlights for me here include: "Extend the Hand of Love to All Who Can Use It", "30,000 Hours to Kill" and "The Naked Cosmos".
June 16, 2017
So many cute and/or grotesque blob creatures
January 22, 2020
Couple of decent stories in here, but most of them were weirdly unnecessarily violent. Definitely not his best work.
August 24, 2024
If you want to travel a road not seen everyday, this would certainly be your fare. It can energize the imagination.
December 2, 2025
As advertised, I now have a mental disorder. What a way to get one, though!
May 9, 2016
This graphic novel contains various shorts featuring some of the characters from the Hernandez Brothers' massive Love and Rockets world, including Princess Anima, Roy, and Errata Stigmata. It's an exercise in absurdity with the stories drawn by Gilbert Hernandez having no discernible plot, point, or beginning. I didn't really like it. I found it confusing, pointless, and unfunny. I enjoyed Jaime Hernandez' forays into Princess Anima, but there was so little of that that I basically gave up around page 120 and started skimming. Pretty disappointing.
April 1, 2017
Not the place to begin with Love & Rockets or Los Bros. Hernandez, Comics Dementia puts in one volume more than twenty years of uncollected vignettes by Gilbert Hernandez. Some of this is nuts, as ever; all of it is amazing, if uneven. If you love his work, here are whole continuities and groups of characters overlooked in other volumes; no Heartbreak Soup group here, though.
Recommended.
Recommended.
April 3, 2017
Some of the weirdest of Beto's stuff in here.
Want to read
May 3, 2018Comics Dementia collects unexpected treasures, oddities, and rarities from outposts of the Love and Rockets galaxy, by one of Earth's greatest living cartoonists, Gilbert Hernandez. Saints, sinners, and the Candide-like Roy mingle in jungles, in fables, in outer space: in cocktail lounges and living rooms. Ditko meets Melville meets Bob Hope—but the party really starts bumping when the Alfred E. Neuman of the L&R-verse, Errata Stigmata, makes her entrance. Many of these stories haven’t been available since their original appearance in comic shops in the 1990s.
(source: Bol.com)
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews