Reading Love and Rockets

Reading Love and Rockets offers a roadmap to the Hernandez brothers’ glorious achievement, the influences that shaped it, and the conversations that swirl around it. This book is an indispensable critical companion to the series that defined alternative comics.–Charles Hatfield, Comics Studies: A GuidebookReadingLove and Rockets will instantly become the go-to book for fans of the Hernandez brothers… and all-around fans of graphic narrative, semiotics, sequential art, and American literature. With word, image, and the researching zest of Umberto Eco, Sobel tracks down the minutia and the maxima of the Love and Rockets universe.–William A. Nericcio, Cultural Studies in the Digital AgeA lavishly illustrated resource on the art and culture of one of the most important series of all time, Reading Love and Rockets is hard to put down. Sobel’s guide offers impressive range and detail, and the result is a compellingly full picture of the world of the Hernandez brothers and their comics masterpiece.–Hillary Chute, Why Comics? From Underground to EverywhereSobel leaves no doubt that Love and Rockets is the masterpiece of our time! This tour de force synthesis of decades of sedulous sleuthing and deft archival digging into all corners of cultural influence and ephemera allows Sobel to peel back those resplendent palimpsestic layers that suffuse Love and Rockets Volume 1.–Frederick Luis Aldama, Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream ComicsA genuine phenomenon and classic of comics entertainment, Love and Rockets should be compulsory reading for any friend of the art form. This companion tome will make navigating the huge interconnected Hernandez universe simplicity itself and I thoroughly commend it.– “Comics Review”I don’t really understand why the material of Love and Rockets isn’t widely regarded as one of the finest pieces of fiction of the last 35 years. Because it is.–Neil GaimanSobel is the perfect person to help shepherd this book: He’s written at length about Love and Rockets, and always with insight and intelligence.– “CBR”

Marc Sobel is the two-time Eisner-nominated editor of The Love and Rockets Companion (Fantagraphics) and the author of Brighter Than You Think: Ten Short Works by Alan Moore (Uncivilized Books). His work has also appeared in The Comics Journal, Boing Boing, Sequart, and Comic Book Galaxy.