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rinemily's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Human Diastrophism is the fourth volume in the Love & Rockets series. This one takes us back to Palomar. In Palomar they town has to deal with a monkey infestation, murder, and family dynamics. This volume doesn't just take place in Palomar but also in America. Gilbert hits it out of the park once again with the world building of everyone in the fictional central American town of Palomar.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, and Murder
kevin_shepherd's review
3.0
Love and Rockets
“Up the stalk of the night that you loved, that I loved, creeps my torn prayer, rent and mended, uncertain and unsure... Without a place and with a place to rest - living darkly with no ray of light - I burn myself away.”
A Latino soap opera with lots and lots of pechos. I’m talking mucho pechos. 66 of them! (Yes I counted
“Up the stalk of the night that you loved, that I loved, creeps my torn prayer, rent and mended, uncertain and unsure... Without a place and with a place to rest - living darkly with no ray of light - I burn myself away.”
A Latino soap opera with lots and lots of pechos. I’m talking mucho pechos. 66 of them! (Yes I counted
octavia_cade's review
challenging
medium-paced
3.0
I have to be honest: I really don't know what to make of this series! I've read a handful of the collections, and they're weirdly compelling. I don't think I've ever read anything like them before, but half the time I don't know what the hell is going on. Mostly I'm just glad that there's a cast of characters and their relationships to each other at the back, because the cast list here is enormous and they're shown over generations, and not always in order.
It's mostly a collection of comic strips about the everyday lives of ordinary people living in the small town of Palomar. It's poor and rural and there are occasional elements of magical realism, but mostly it's general fiction. (As one of the characters says, a little magical realism goes a long way.) There's a serial killer and a pestilential invasion of monkeys and a decrepit old man who seems to be some sort of undying protector of generations of women in a family. There's also arguments between mothers and daughters, emigration to the USA, earthquakes, adultery... so much is thrown at the wall that I'm almost overwhelmed with it all, and want a timeline and a cheat sheet. And yet, and yet... I want to read more about little one-armed Casimira, and Doralis with her tv series, the artist who throws his sculptures in the river, the sheriff carrying around a mummified foetus, and all the rest. It's completely bizarre, but it's interesting.
Fucked if I know what's happening here, but it's got style.
It's mostly a collection of comic strips about the everyday lives of ordinary people living in the small town of Palomar. It's poor and rural and there are occasional elements of magical realism, but mostly it's general fiction. (As one of the characters says, a little magical realism goes a long way.) There's a serial killer and a pestilential invasion of monkeys and a decrepit old man who seems to be some sort of undying protector of generations of women in a family. There's also arguments between mothers and daughters, emigration to the USA, earthquakes, adultery... so much is thrown at the wall that I'm almost overwhelmed with it all, and want a timeline and a cheat sheet. And yet, and yet... I want to read more about little one-armed Casimira, and Doralis with her tv series, the artist who throws his sculptures in the river, the sheriff carrying around a mummified foetus, and all the rest. It's completely bizarre, but it's interesting.
Fucked if I know what's happening here, but it's got style.
indeedithappens's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Abortion, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexism, Abandonment, Homophobia, Gore, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Racial slurs, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Chronic illness, Racism, War, Body shaming, Dementia, Kidnapping, Infertility, Lesbophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Vomit, Xenophobia, Child death, Classism, Antisemitism, Blood, Torture, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Drug use, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Death, Infidelity, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Colonisation, Death of parent, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Alcohol, Car accident, Grief, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Sexual violence, Stalking, Pedophilia, Suicide, and Terminal illness
dantastic's review
5.0
Human Diastrophism collects stories from Love & Rockets Bonanza, Love & Rockets 21-26, 41-48, 50, and 10 Years of Love & Rockets.
Here we are, my second foray into Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar tales. The seventeen tales within cover various points in the lives of the people of Palmor, most of them introduced in the first volume.
Palomar, the sleepy Central American town without phone service, is locked in the grip of a serial killer in the titular story and is later ravaged by an earthquake. The rest of the stories are of the human interest or relationship variety. Without giving too much of the plot away, people move forward, questions are answered, and still more questions come up. Unexpected twists abound and no one is left unscathed, except maybe Tipin Tipin.
Gilbert Hernandez' art evolved a bit from the first volume. I see some Archie comics influence, as well as Peanuts, and some Alex Toth. There are also some backgrounds that are pretty spectacular.
There is an even larger cast of characters in this volume than in the first one but thankfully Gilbert included a cast page at the beginning and at the end. I thought maybe the large cast was a weakness in the first book but now I think it gives Gilbert more directions to do in.
Human Diastrophism. Five out of five stars. I'm glad I have so many volumes left.
Here we are, my second foray into Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar tales. The seventeen tales within cover various points in the lives of the people of Palmor, most of them introduced in the first volume.
Palomar, the sleepy Central American town without phone service, is locked in the grip of a serial killer in the titular story and is later ravaged by an earthquake. The rest of the stories are of the human interest or relationship variety. Without giving too much of the plot away, people move forward, questions are answered, and still more questions come up. Unexpected twists abound and no one is left unscathed, except maybe Tipin Tipin.
Gilbert Hernandez' art evolved a bit from the first volume. I see some Archie comics influence, as well as Peanuts, and some Alex Toth. There are also some backgrounds that are pretty spectacular.
There is an even larger cast of characters in this volume than in the first one but thankfully Gilbert included a cast page at the beginning and at the end. I thought maybe the large cast was a weakness in the first book but now I think it gives Gilbert more directions to do in.
Human Diastrophism. Five out of five stars. I'm glad I have so many volumes left.
scheu's review
5.0
Still amazing - but I'll need to revisit this volume in the future with some kind of annotated guide. So much plot, explicit and implicit, in a single page. A veritable roller-coaster.
jekutree's review
5.0
Gilbert’s Love and Rockets keeps up its extremely high quality. He and his brother are both masters of the medium and even if I do prefer Jaime’s work, Gilbert is still sensational.
matt4hire's review
5.0
The second of Beto's Palomar volumes, this is where the story really takes off. We learn about Luba's awful past while the outside world intrudes on Palomar in some very violent ways. Characters become far more fully illustrated here, especially Luba's daughters, Carmen & Heraclio, and Tonantzin. Unfortunately, some characters don't come back and are missed for it (I'm looking at you, Israel!), but the rest of the characters get fully illustrated.
crookedtreehouse's review
2.0
Fantagraphics publishing could really benefit from having more writers, and less visual artists putting together their collections. Love & Rockets isn't the only series they put out that's collected almost nonsensically, but it's the one that suffers the most.
Both Jaime's Locas stories, and Gilbert's Palomar stories hae been told out of order. And their early work isn't written especially well. Either Fantagraphics could just have collected each story in the order it was printed, or they could try and edit it together chronologically. They did neither, leaving an incomprehensible storyline where characters who were dead are alive again because the story takes place earlier, but you can't tell from any other character's appearance.
I nearly gave up on this book several times because I stopped having the ability to care about when each story was supposed to be taking place.
Part of this is on Gilbert. I enjoyed the first Palomar collection because of how it presented the myth of the town. There were some weak parts when he tried to get supernatural, but the personal relationship stories rang true. That changes in this volume.
The crux of the story, "Human Diastrophism", the only graphic novel length story from the early Love & Rockets days just isn't very good. It starts off with a strong premise but it gets constantly sidetracked and by the end of the story, it's unclear what Gilbert was trying to say, why the serial killer was killing people, why the one witness chose to lie about it. I had no idea why they kept involving the monkeys. It was a mess. Followed by stories with characters who died during the main story bein in a conersation on one page, and then being memorialized on the next, as though there's no sene of actual time in Palomar, which may very well be Gilbert's intent, but it makes it frustrating to read.
I'm definitely not going to continue to read Love & Rockets for a while. Maybe I'll eventually come back to it. But for now, I'll have to file it away with Watchmen, R Crumb's work, and The Dark Knight Returns as pieces of art that helped change the comics industry into something I love, but that don't hold up to the work that it inspired.
I recommend this to people who liked 100 Years Of Solitude, which was clearly the inspiration for Palomar. Which should have red-flagged me away.
Both Jaime's Locas stories, and Gilbert's Palomar stories hae been told out of order. And their early work isn't written especially well. Either Fantagraphics could just have collected each story in the order it was printed, or they could try and edit it together chronologically. They did neither, leaving an incomprehensible storyline where characters who were dead are alive again because the story takes place earlier, but you can't tell from any other character's appearance.
I nearly gave up on this book several times because I stopped having the ability to care about when each story was supposed to be taking place.
Part of this is on Gilbert. I enjoyed the first Palomar collection because of how it presented the myth of the town. There were some weak parts when he tried to get supernatural, but the personal relationship stories rang true. That changes in this volume.
The crux of the story, "Human Diastrophism", the only graphic novel length story from the early Love & Rockets days just isn't very good. It starts off with a strong premise but it gets constantly sidetracked and by the end of the story, it's unclear what Gilbert was trying to say, why the serial killer was killing people, why the one witness chose to lie about it. I had no idea why they kept involving the monkeys. It was a mess. Followed by stories with characters who died during the main story bein in a conersation on one page, and then being memorialized on the next, as though there's no sene of actual time in Palomar, which may very well be Gilbert's intent, but it makes it frustrating to read.
I'm definitely not going to continue to read Love & Rockets for a while. Maybe I'll eventually come back to it. But for now, I'll have to file it away with Watchmen, R Crumb's work, and The Dark Knight Returns as pieces of art that helped change the comics industry into something I love, but that don't hold up to the work that it inspired.
I recommend this to people who liked 100 Years Of Solitude, which was clearly the inspiration for Palomar. Which should have red-flagged me away.