Comics Fondle

I bought The Education of Hopey Glass thinking it was new–something about Fantagraphics’s solicitation text. Then I found out it was a collection of Love and Rockets Vol. II material and was fine (I don’t have any of the issues… my Love and Rockets collection consists of Palomar and Locas, as I gave away the first collection to a friend discovering comics–she wanted to know what to read after Watchmen and I figured, why not a little Love and Rockets when the rockets still played a major part).

The book’s a lovely hardcover, though the blackboard motif is confused on the back (the picture would be white on green, you know, chalk). There’s seven plus years between these stories and the ones I last read in Locas, not to mention four years since I read Locas. It’s been a while, while Hopey and Maggie still riding off together (even though a friend warned me it wasn’t going to last).

Jaime’s a lot different as an artist here than he was twenty years ago. The first piece in the collection, “Day by Day With Hopey,” is a set of seven shorts (ranging from four to twelve pages), chronicling an eventful and not eventful week for Hopey. She’s changing careers, which gives Jaime the chance to explore the fellowship–the camaraderie–people have with their co-workers. It’s only one of the days–and not even all of it (the biggest constant in the piece is Hopey and girlfriend Rosie)–but it really resonates. I think it’s in that scene–there’s one panel with an absurd expression on Hopey’s face–when I realized how different Jaime’s approach had become.

As a reintroduction to Love and Rockets, “Day by Day” is a lengthy rumination on restlessness and unhappiness. When Maggie does show up, she and Hopey’s relationship is a whole lot different than the last time I read the book. During this sequence, Jaime has a brief moment (I guess she’s a recurring character) with a superhero coming home for the night. This kind of detail shouldn’t seem so strange to me, but it really does. Gone are the days of dinosaurs.

Reading “Day by Day” as my return to Love and Rockets is probably a bad idea. I can appreciate a lot of things, but since I’m coming into it not knowing what’s going on… it’s problematic. Maggie shows up for the last “Day,” and it’s a touching scene. Hopey’s just started her job as a paraprofessional at a grade school (which encouraged a lengthy flashback to a Peanuts-influenced account of Hopey’s childhood) and Maggie comes to see how she’s doing. Even if I don’t know the context, the conclusion gives me some footing–Maggie smiling always was a good moment.

Jaime’s art has definitely got more comic strip-like, except for his still perfect close-ups.

I decided to split up my reading of the book for a couple reasons. First, since I’m so damn lazy about reading comics, but also because I wanted to give each section a chance to resonation. Oh, and third because what if one sections a little… lighter than the rest. I started reading the “Angel of Tarzana” strips and heavy they aren’t.

Recommend on Mahalo