This is a review of Human Diastrophism: A Love and Rockets Book, the second Palomar volume written & drawn by Gilbert Hernandez. If you are new to Love & Rockets, start with Heartbreak Soup, which features the same characters and comes first chronologically. The Brothers Hernandez – Gilbert and Jaime and Mario – have been making great comics for over forty years. Personally, I like Gilbert’s material a little better than Jaime’s, but both are wonderful.
The chronicles of Palomar combine magic realism with an ensemble cast. The setting is Palomar, a village in Latin America cut off from the rest of the world. To clarify: the people of Palomar know the rest of the world exists, they just don’t have much contact with it. The plot is hard to describe, as there are a lot of them. Most of the storylines have to do with people arriving and leaving Palomar – a serial killer, a fashion designer, a woman who sets herself on fire, an aged hitman (?!?!) named Gorgo.
The Love and Rockets series features realistic body sizes and types. There is a frankness about sex, nudity, and bodily functions that might shock a few people. The characters have real problems, and don’t always make the ‘correct’ choices. Parts of this graphic novel are set around the late 1980’s, when everyone thought there’d be thermonuclear war. If you weren’t around then, you didn’t miss much; you can listen to Sting’s song Russians to catch up.
Anyway, highly recommended!
Abandoned Places 
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