How would a kitchen maid fare against a seven-headed dragon? What happens when a woman marries a mouse? And what can a young man learn from a thousand leaf cutter ants? Famed Love and Rockets creator Jaime Hernandez asks these questions and more as he transforms beloved myths into bold, stunning, and utterly contemporary comics. Guided by the classic works of F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada, Hernandez's first book for young readers brings the sights and stories of Latin America to a new generation of graphic-novel fans around the world.

How would a kitchen maid fare against a seven-headed dragon? What happens when a woman marries a mouse? And what can a young man learn from a thousand leaf cutter ants? Famed Love and Rockets creator Jaime Hernandez asks these questions and more as he transforms beloved myths into bold, stunning, and utterly contemporary comics. Guided by the classic works of F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada, Hernandez's first book for young readers brings the sights and stories of Latin America to a new generation of graphic-novel fans around the world.

Featuring Hernandez s longtime Love and Rockets heroine Maggie, the suppression of family history is the initial thread that ties the The Love Bunglers together. Because these secrets can t be dealt with openly, their lingering effect is even more powerful. But Maggie s ability to navigate and find meaning in her life despite losing her culture, her brother, her profession, and her friends is what s made her a compelling character. After a lifetime of losses, Maggie finds, in the second half, her longtime off and on lover, Ray Dominguez. In taking us through lives, deaths, and near-fatalities, The Love Bunglers encapsulates Maggie s emotional history as it moves from resignation to memories of loss, to sudden violence (a theme in this story) and eventually to love and contentment. Much like what John Updike created in his four Rabbit novels, Jaime Hernandez has been following his longtime character, Maggie, around for several decades, all of which has seemed to be building towards this book in particular."

Picking up right after Perla La Loca, the third volume of the definitive Maggie series repackaging, this compilation of stories from Jaime Hernandez s solo comic Penny Century and his subsequent return to Love and Rockets (Volume II) charts the further lives of his beloved Locas. But first... wrestling Penny Century starts off with a blast with Whoa, Nellie , a unique graphic novelette in which Maggie, who has settled in with her pro-wrestler aunt for a while, experiences that wild and woolly world first-hand. Then it s back to chills and spills with the old cast of Hopey, Ray Dominguez, and Izzy Ortiz including Maggie s romantic dream fantasia The Race and the definitive Ray story, Everybody Loves Me, Baby. Penny Century also features two major flashback stories: Bay of Threes finally reveals the full back story behind Beatriz Penny Century Garcia, Maggie s long-time, bleached-blonde bombshell friend (who gives this volume its name and can currently be seen as a super-villainess in Love and Rockets: New Stories), while Home School is one of Hernandez s popular looks at his characters lives from when they were little kids, drawn in an adorable simplified Dennis the Menace type style."

The 25th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this, the second of three volumes collecting the adventures of the spunky Maggie; her annoying, pixie-ish best friend and sometime lover Hopey; and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie's weirdo mentor Izzy as well as the aging but still heroic wrestler Rena Titanon and Maggie's handsome love interest, Rand Race. After the sci-fi trappings of his earliest stories (as seen in Maggie the Mechanic, the first volume in this series), Hernandez refined his approach, settling on the more naturalistic environment of the fictional Los Angeles barrio, Hoppers, and the lives of the young Mexican-Americans and punk rockers who live there. A central story and one of Jaime's absolute peaks is "The Death of Speedy." Such is Jaime's mastery that even though the end of the story is telegraphed from the very title, the downhill spiral of Speedy, the local heartthrob, is utterly compelling and ultimately quite surprising. Also in this volume, Maggie begins her on-again off-again romance with Ray D., leading to friction and an eventual separation from Hopey.

(Note: A number of these stories, including a whole cycle of wrestling stories starring or co-starring Rena Titanon, were not collected in the hardcover Locas.)"

The third volume of Locas stories from "Love and Rockets,"
"Perla la Loca"begins with the graphic novel "Wigwam Bam," arguably Jaime Hernandez's definitive statement on the post-punk culture. As Maggie, Hopey, and the rest of the Locas prowl Los Angeles, the East Coast, and parts in between trying to recapture the carefree spirit of those early days--except for Izzy, who tries to flee and ultimately, ironically, is the one who finds Hopey (and who unlocks the secret of Maggie and Hopey's relationship.) "Wigwam Bam" brings us up to date on all the members of Jaime's extensive cast of characters and then drops a narrative bomb on Hopey (and us) in the very last pages.
Split up from Hopey yet again, Maggie bounces back and forth between a one-laundromat town in Texas (the "Chester Square" that serves as the title of two of the strongest stories in the book), where she has to contend with both her own inner demons and a murderous hooker, and Camp Vicki, where she has to fend off her aunt Vicki's attempts to make her a professional wrestler and the unwanted advances of the amorous wrestling champ-to-be, Gina. As usual, Jaime spotlights a wide range of headstrong female characters, including Maggie's sister Esther and her cousin Xochitl; Penny Century, Hopey, and Danita show up as well, as does Rena Titanon (recently seen in Jaime's New York Times serial "La Maggie la Loca"), who, joined by the wrestler El Diablo, dominates the finale with a rousing free-for-all slugfest against six armed thugs. And what's this about Maggie getting married?

As Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez continue to delight readers new and old with the continuing adventures of their characters in the annual Love and Rockets: New Stories, Fantagraphics continues to collect their earlier stories in these fat, handy, and inexpensive collections. In this batch of Locas stories by Jaime Hernandez from the pages of Love and Rockets Volume II (picking up where 2010 s Penny Century collection left off), an older and wiser Maggie faces down her old demons and the Ghost of Hoppers in a full-length graphic novel (which also introduces one of Jaime s greatest recent characters, Vivian the Frogmouth, the near-psychotic bombshell). Meanwhile, the ever-feisty but maturing Hopey (her Spanish birth name giving this collection its title) transitions from tending bar to teaching kindergarten (while still juggling a complex love life), and the final quarter of the book shows Maggie s lovable ex Ray Dominguez being dragged into the aftermath of a grisly murder thanks to his falling for the Frogmouth.

'Maggie the Mechanic' collects the earliest, punkiest, most heavily sci-fi Maggie stories and readers can see the artist refine his approach. Despite these strong shifts in tone, the stunning art and razor-sharp characterisation keep this collection consistent throughout."