Love and Rockets #18
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeLove and Rockets #18 (September 1986) represents both Hernandez brothers operating at the height of their powers within a single oversized magazine issue, weaving together two of the most ambitious storylines in the series' original run. Gilbert's 'Duck Feet' concludes its sprawling Palomar chapter — a 28-page tale split across issues 17 and 18 — pitting the town against an escaped fugitive, a wave of illness, and the unsettling presence of a mysterious bruja, showcasing his mastery of magic-realist ensemble storytelling. Jaime's Locas installments, including 'Locas vs. Locos' and 'Mojado Power,' deepen the social fabric of Hoppers with the naturalistic, punk-inflected slice-of-life approach that made the series a landmark of alternative comics and a foundational text for nuanced portrayals of Chicana and queer working-class life in the medium.
In "Duck Feet, Part Two," Gilbert Hernandez delivers a haunting, atmospheric chapter of Palomar’s ongoing story, where a mysterious illness sweeps through the town as storm clouds gather and the enigmatic Bruja searches for a stolen skull. With tensions rising, newly appointed deputy Tonantzin patrols under the weight of the storm, while Geraldo tries to help the delirious Guadalupe—only to be confronted by Chelo, her gun pointed but empty. The story builds to a quiet, eerie climax as Luba emerges from a hole with the skull, and the Bruja claims it, before the storm lifts and the town returns to normal. The issue’s moody tone and layered character moments are rendered with Gilbert Hernandez’s distinctive, expressive artwork, both on the interior and on the cover, which he also created.
In "Duck Feet, Part Two," as a storm looms over Palomar and a strange sickness spreads, newly appointed deputy sheriff Tonantzin patrols a town on edge. When Geraldo finds the hallucinating Guadalupe, his attempt to help spirals into tension with Chelo, who points a gun at him—only to reveal it’s not loaded—before Luba emerges from a hole with the skull in hand. The story unfolds with quiet dread and sudden release, as the Bruja takes the skull and the storm lifts, leaving the town changed but restored.
In this quietly poignant slice of life from *Love and Rockets* #18, Jo navigates the rhythms of everyday struggles and fleeting connections—helping Maggie and Hopey wrestle a stubborn sleeper sofa up a hill, sharing quiet moments at Mrs. Galindo’s wake, and later uncovering a forgotten diary that stirs something unspoken. Set against the familiar backdrop of the Locas’ world, the story captures small, intimate turns of fate with warmth and understated grace.
ComicBooks.com Value
This exact issue on ebay
Raw — VF/NM ▾ $9.99–$17.95 2 listings
Raw / ungraded ▾ $3–$28 9 listings
More listings for this title
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
By September 1986, Love and Rockets was four years into its Fantagraphics run — the publisher having signed Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez after Gary Groth was impressed by their 1981 self-published debut, which the brothers had originally sold at conventions for a dollar apiece. The series was produced in an oversized, black-and-white magazine format (the standard for the first 50 issues), with each brother writing and drawing his own stories independently, a structure that allowed both to pursue long-form serialized narratives simultaneously within the same periodical. Issue #18 falls in the thick of what critics and scholars have identified as the period when both Hernandez brothers had fully matured their respective styles — Gilbert's magic-realist density and Jaime's clean-line minimalism — making 1986 a particularly fertile stretch for the anthology.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published September 1986 by Fantagraphics Books as part of Love and Rockets Volume 1, the original oversized magazine-format run that would continue through issue #50.
- Contains 'Duck Feet, Part Two,' the conclusion of Gilbert Hernandez's 28-page Palomar story begun in issue #17, featuring sheriff Chelo, Luba, Tonantzín, La Bruja, and much of the Palomar ensemble including Luba's children Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, and Casimira.
- Errata Stigmata — Gilbert's surreal, stigmata-bearing science-fiction character — appears in the issue in a dream sequence, a type of crossover cameo she makes occasionally in Palomar stories.
- Jaime Hernandez contributes Locas stories ('Locas vs. Locos' and 'Mojado Power') featuring Maggie Chascarrillo, Hopey Glass, Speedy Ortiz, Doyle Blackburn, Penny Century, Danita Lincoln, Blanca Rizo, Rena Titañon, Vicki Glori, and Terry Downe, among others — deploying the full breadth of his Southern California punk ensemble.
- The Gilbert material from this issue was later reprinted in The Complete Love & Rockets Vol. 6: Duck Feet (Fantagraphics, first printing May 1989), and the Jaime material in The Complete Love & Rockets Vol. 6 as well, drawing from issues #6, #9, and #17–20.
- Both storylines from this issue are also collected in the Love and Rockets Library series: Jaime's Locas content in Vol. 3 (The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S., July 2007) and Gilbert's Palomar content in the corresponding Palomar library volumes.
- The series as a whole won Harvey Awards for Best Continuing Series in 1989 and 1990, with work from this era of the run forming a core part of the creative output cited by critics and peers.
- The Locas character Speedy Ortiz depicted in this issue later inspired the name of the Boston indie-rock band Speedy Ortiz, a marker of the series' broad cultural reach beyond comics.
Cast · 27 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup #[2] (1988), Pox #5/1989 (1989), Pox #6/1989 (1989), The Complete Love & Rockets #6 (1989), The Complete Love & Rockets #6 (1989), Love & Rockets #3 (1989), En amerikan i Palomar #[nn] (1991), Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (A Love and Rockets Book) #[nn] (2003), Locas #[nn] (2004), Locas #2 (2006), Love and Rockets Library #[2] (2007), Love and Rockets #2 (2007), Love and Rockets Library #[3] (2007), Love and Rockets #3 (2007), Love and Rockets: The Covers #[nn] (2013), Love and Rockets: The First Fifty: The Classic 40th Anniversary Collection #[3] (2022), Palomar #1 (2024)
Key issues in Love and Rockets
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.