Palomar, My Palomar

Gilbert Hernandez is my favorite comic book writer. This takes nothing away from the efforts of others working their craft in the field but for my money Beto is the most engaging, thought-provoking, and imaginative writer currently using comics as his chosen medium. That he is no slouch when it comes to cartooning is a delightful, undeniable wonder as well.

At the heart of his expansive body of work are the tales he continues to craft for the monumental Love and Rockets series he co-created with his brothers Jaime and Mario. The 50-issue volume one run of L&R is inarguably one of the greatest comics series ever published (were I, for whatever reason, lost on a desert island for a long period of time they are certainly the comics I would want to have in library there.)

Gilbert’s most bountiful and intricate L&R tapestry was, of course, the fictional Latin American town of Palomar with its colorful and interesting…simple folk and complicated souls in the same instant…citizens. The sprawling, sobering, humorous, life-affirming, fanciful, bittersweet masterpiece that is the story of the town is told in the massive, utterly magnificent 522-page hardcover collection, Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (if there is a better comic book collection I haven’t seen it.)

Hernandez left Palomar behind to follow the amazing force of nature that is Luba, the towering id of the Palomar stories, to America but he’s returned to it in New Tales of Old Palomar, a 3-issue magazine-sized series from Fantagraphics Books and Coconino Press.

New Tales throws the spotlight on untold tales from the town’s past with “The Children of Palomar”. We know the final fates of many of the characters already but these grand little stories delve into episodes we were no previously privy to and, in the process, they add nuance, insight, and pathos to the things we know will happen to the characters in their futures.

The first issue features the “secret origins” of two beloved Palomar denizens as well as telling vignettes about relationships that would develop in due course (we can see, for example, the moment when feisty Carmen began to fall in love with bookish but stolid Heraclio.) The second issue focuses on an odd adventure shared by the young, ever-petulant Gato along with the doomed Pintor and Manuel whose deaths would one day become poignant chapters in Palomar history. Sheriff Chelo, the bright and unwavering maternal heart of Palomar, is at the heart of both issues saving, nurturing, and protecting the children (of all ages) of the town.

New Tales is a wonderful addition to the Palomar canon (the 3^rd issue is due to be published in the fall.)

Hail and Howdy, True Believers

When I was a boy (many moons ago) a guy who was trying to get next to my mother gave me a big box of comics he found in a used bookstore in San Francisco. There was some Marvel stuff in there...a couple of things from other companies...but it was mostly DC stuff. Superman, Adventure Comics, Batman, and a bunch of the grand old 80-Page Giants (I loved those things!)

Now I had been reading comics before this but this was the biggest chunk of four-color wonderfulness that I had ever gotten. My love of comic books led to reading Greek Mythology, Science Fiction, and then (and now) everything that caught my eclectic fancy. I am an avid reader still but even as I savor "real books", the comic books remain even as I creak along into my dotage.

My all-time favorite comic series is Love and Rockets but before you write me off as one of those "too-cool-for-the-room" indie comic snobs I am also an unabashed super-hero fan. I know that they are preposterous and utterly silly but I don't care.

And I am a big fan of the most preposterous and unwieldy super-hero concept of all: the super-hero team. I loved the Legion of Super-Heroes when I was boy and I have stayed with them through thick and thin ever since; the same is true of the Avengers.

About this blog, it will be updated serendipitously. I've been out of the weekly comic habit since 2001 when I started getting my comics in monthly shipments from the fine folks at Discount Comic Book Service so current reviews will not be a feature (though reviews there will doubtlessly be.) We shall throw ourselves upon the tender mercies of Great Rao and let whatever happens here happen.

I'm Michael...a comic book fan...suspending disbelief since 1965.

Namaste, y'all.