'There's nothing like it in comics' … how Love and Rockets broke the rules

It’s the groundbreaking comic whose characters have aged along with its readers – and Neil Gaiman is a huge fan

At the turn of the 1980s, if you wanted to read comics, you were pretty much confined to Spider-Man, Superman and their Spandexed stablemates at Marvel and DC. The underground comic scene of the 60s and 70s had faded alongside Art Spiegelman and Robert Crumb, and postpunk independents such as Dave Sim’s Cerebus the Aardvark had yet to fully take up the slack. Then, in 1981, along came Love and Rockets, a crudely printed, self-published comic from three California brothers, Jaime, Gilbert and Mario, known as Los Bros Hernandez. It was – and remains – one of the most original and influential comic projects ever.

“I was an enormous fan,” says Neil Gaiman, the multi-award-winning author and graphic novelist. “I still am. 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.”

Continue reading...