Luba

Luba is a strong-willed, voluptuous woman who first appeared in the early Palomar stories by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez. Gilbert developed her as a central figure in the fictional Latin American village of Palomar, where she works as the town's bathhouse operator.

Few characters in alternative comics have the sheer gravitational pull of Luba, who made her entrance in the very first issue of Love and Rockets back in 1981 — a Bronze Age debut that helped announce Fantagraphics' landmark series as something genuinely unlike anything else on the stands. Created by Jaime Hernandez, she has endured across more than four decades of storytelling, accumulating 72 catalog appearances and three key issues that collectors rightly prize. Her world is richly populated — she shares these pages with Maggie Chascarillo, Hopey Glass, Maricela, Chelo, and Pipo Jimenez, a cast that speaks to the dense, novelistic humanity at the heart of Love and Rockets. If you're exploring the deep roots of literary alternative comics, Luba is exactly the kind of complex, long-running figure you'll want to follow.