Loverboys

In the small Palomar-like town of Lagrimas, a young “loverboy” has a torrid affair with the woman who once was his seventh grade teacher, while three young girls plot to poison the populace. It’s a passionate tale as only Gilbert Hernandez, the legendary cocreator of Love and Rockets, can deliver!

Ok, so this one was definitely different.  As one who’s not real familiar with the work of Gilbert Hernandez, I had a really hard time following what was actually going on.  From what I could discern, the story is about a guy named Rocky, who happens to be a big time playa in his small town.  He’s been with quite a few women, but is now torn between his boss and his former seventh-grade teacher, Mrs. Paz.  The premise itself doesn’t sound too far-fetched, especially in this day and age, it’s just the delivery and presentation of the story that throws me off.  I mean, take the story progression for instance.  On one page you have Rocky saying something to his boss and then the next panel she’s nowhere to be seen and he’s outside with his two friends and she wasn’t even around on the previous page.  Then, two panels later, we jump to three other characters, who had nothing to do with the previous three.  One could argue that this happens all of the time in scene transitions, but there’s no indication that the scene has actually changed.  It’s like the characters just pop in and out when needed to further the story along, I’m sure that this probably isn’t the case, but for one who doesn’t follow Gilbert Hernandez, it gets very confusing.  Are any of his other books this scattered?  Perhaps I’ll have to look into that one of these days.

I’m not entirely sure what I took away from this story.  Everything just felt really stiff and awkward, both the characters and the dialogue.  I did kind of like the old comic strip look to the book, but not much else really grabbed me.  If you’ve got a more refined taste in literature then perhaps this one is for you, otherwise I can’t really recommend it to the casual reader.  If you have to re-read something a few times to figure out what happened, it’s probably not worth the purchase.

So, if you find yourself looking for a change of pace from the superhero, or horror genres then perhaps give Loverboys a go.  If not, then I’d stay away from this one as it strays away from the comfort zone of the aforementioned genres.  Like I said before, it’s definitely different.  For more info on where to find this book, visit the Dark Horse website, or the Dark Horse Facebook page.

Geek-o-Rama received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, comments and opinions are those of the individual reviewer.