Love and Rockets #2
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeLove and Rockets #2 (April 1983) is a cornerstone of the American alternative-comics movement, delivering the first appearances of several characters who would become central to Jaime Hernandez's decades-long Locas saga — most notably Penny Century, Rena Titañon, Tse Tse, Errata Stigmata, and a fleeting two-panel cameo of Vicki Glori — characters whose entangled fates Jaime would trace across nearly half a century of storytelling. The issue also extends the Jaime-written 'Mechanics' adventure framework that positioned Maggie as a pro-solar mechanic navigating a dinosaur-populated jungle dictatorship, an early sci-fi genre play that gradually gave way to the intimate, naturalistic slice-of-life style the series became celebrated for. Taken together with the Gilbert- and Mario-written strips inside the same 64-page magazine-format package, issue #2 demonstrates how quickly the Hernandez brothers were building interlocking casts and tonal ranges — punk realism, magic-inflected satire, science fiction — that had no real precedent in mainstream American comics of the era. It stands as early evidence of what Fantagraphics was nurturing in Love and Rockets: novelistic storytelling by Latinx creators for a literate adult readership that the direct-sales market had not previously served.
In "Mechanics," the Polaris Apartments become a crossroads for the bizarre and desperate: a deposed alien king seeking refuge, a drug dealer with a personal vendetta, and a mysterious figure named Zezbar trying to escape his own dimension. Written by the Hernandez brothers and illustrated with sharp, expressive detail by Mario Hernandez, this issue blends surreal humor and quiet tension in a story that unfolds with the grounded chaos of everyday life, elevated by the strange. The cover, by Jaime Hernandez, captures the moment’s uneasy energy.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
After Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez self-published the first issue of Love and Rockets in 1981 and sold copies at conventions for a dollar each, Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth encountered the comic through The Comics Journal and offered the brothers a formal publishing deal, relaunching the series in 1982 in an oversized magazine format. Issue #2 followed in April 1983, still branded under the CX Comics Experimental imprint in its indicia, and featured an editorial essay by Groth — continued across the inside front and back covers — arguing for comics as a legitimate literary art form, directly championing the issue's own 'Mechanics' story as his exhibit. The series was produced with each brother contributing independently: Jaime wrote and drew 'Mechanics,' Mario scripted 'Radio Zero' with Gilbert on art, the two collaborated on the untitled Polaris Apartments strip, and Gilbert wrote and drew the 'Music for Monsters II' installment, establishing the anthology structure that would define the magazine through its original 50-issue run.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published April 1983 by Fantagraphics (CX Comics Experimental imprint); black-and-white; 64 pages; magazine-sized format.
- First appearance of Penny Century (Beatríz García), the wealthy bombshell who aspires to become a superhero and whose relationship with Rand Race becomes a recurring throughline in Jaime's Locas stories.
- First appearance of Rena Titañon, the Mexican wrestling champion and Latin American revolutionary icon who becomes a significant figure in Maggie's life across the Locas saga.
- First appearance of Tse Tse (supporting character in the 'Mechanics' story) and a brief two-panel first appearance of Vicki Glori, Rena's championship wrestling rival.
- First appearance of Errata Stigmata, a Gilbert/Mario Hernandez character introduced in 'Radio Zero' (scripted by Mario, art by Gilbert), in which she and her friend Bubbles blow up an embassy.
- Jaime's lead story 'Mechanics' features Maggie and Rand Race dispatched to repair a downed ship in a volatile jungle country where dinosaurs still roam and an oppressive dictator holds power — the science-fiction adventure mode Jaime would gradually phase out in favor of slice-of-life realism.
- The issue also includes an untitled strip (scripted by Mario and Gilbert, art by Mario) set at the Polaris Apartments, and 'Music for Monsters II' (script and art by Gilbert), in which Bang Bang and Inez stop five Killiaak monsters from stealing a deadly disease — part of Gilbert's early genre-inflected work later collected in the 'Amor y Cohetes' library volume.
- Stories from this issue were reprinted in The Complete Love & Rockets #1 — Music for Mechanics (February 1989), in the Fantagraphics Library edition Maggie the Mechanic (January 2007), in the Titan UK edition (May 2007), and in the facsimile box set Love and Rockets: The First Fifty: The Classic 40th Anniversary Collection (Fantagraphics, 2022).
Cast · 19 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Mechanics #1 (1985), The Complete Love & Rockets #1 (1985), Mechanics #2 (1985), Mechanics #3 (1985), Pox #4/1986 (1986), Pox Special #2/1986 (1986), Spécial USA #23 (1986), USA magazine #24 (1986), Heartbreak Soup and Other Stories #[nn] (1987), Mechanics #[nn] (1988), Love & Rockets #2 (1988), Comic Art #48 (1988), The Complete Love & Rockets #1 (1989), Love and Rockets #2 (1991), Locas #[nn] (2004), Locas #1 (2006), Love and Rockets Library #[1] (2007), Love and Rockets #1 (2007), Love and Rockets Library #[7] (2008), Love and Rockets #7 (2008), Love and Rockets: The Covers #[nn] (2013), Love and Rockets #1 (2022), Love and Rockets: The First Fifty: The Classic 40th Anniversary Collection #[1] (2022), Love and Rockets #3
Key issues in Love and Rockets
Variants (2)
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