I first read these stories in the early eighties when they were part of the magazine Love and Rockets. I loved them then because they were so familiar and so real and so well done that they seemed like letters written to me by friends far away but very close to my heart.
This collection of significant highlights from the epic story of the two main characters, Maggie and Hopey encompasses 14 years – from 1981-1996. It’s 704 beautifully rendered pages, and on the last page I was teary eyed. In fact, I read the last story twice and was teary eyed twice. In fact, just thinking about it now gives me chills.
Reading through the stories, three or so of the final ones for the first time, had a profound effect upon me. It was a concerted effort because it was a restricted library loan – only for two weeks, and with lots of other stuff going on in my life, I had to grab time to read it whenever I could without over doing it. Truthfully, as I was nearing the end I was sad already to know that it soon would be over, despite getting it back in time. I don’t really want to bring it back.
I own a lot of the originals – most of them actually – but I still will get this book to own as well. There was something overwhelming about reading it/looking at it in this full volume. The book itself is beautiful (it’s also overwhelmingly big and weighs a ton) – the story is even more so for being collected in this way.
It’s like a soap opera in many ways – but it’s a good thing that soap operas aren’t actually like this because if they were I would never leave my TV.
I love the world they live in, even though it’s not a perfect world (like ours is?) -– sometimes awful, terrible things happen – sometimes it’s cruel – sometimes it’s very violent – there is great poverty and uncertainty – there is boredom and despair – and of course a lot of heartbreak – but there also is a lot laughs, lots of excitement and of course, a lot of love – and it’s the kind of love you can only get from a family, an exogamous one for the most part – although the blood family gradually comes more into view as well.
And that is another very interesting thing about the series, because it does stretch out over 14 years and the people do grow older (not exactly 14 years older, but there is a proximity to that), some people die, some grow fatter, some get pregnant, some get married, some grow apart and some after doing so come back together again. This is again not unlike a serial soap opera. But this soap opera has dinosaurs, drugs, rocket ships, lesbians, punk rockers, skin heads, booze, gang bangers, wrestlers, and more …
Reading this always felt like home even though it wasn’t really – and it’s a mystery how this is accomplished – one that might be convincingly unraveled through diligent semiotic analysis – but I am content to feel it and not know why.
It is a great inspiration, and the things that truly inspire me, get inside of me and get me going on my own thing, are always a mystery for how and why they do that.
There was only one sticking point for me. It came as I was admiring the way the characters were becoming more nostalgic as they grew older. Then Maggie was revealed to be still under 21, and it didn’t make sense to me that she was that young. It was vague – I mean she could have been 20 and 11 months for all I know, but it was the only reference really to her or Hopey’s age, and it didn’t ring true for me. And as a result it got me looking for signs of their age, which I had never done before, but which I had reflected on because they were aging, changing, and doing so in a realistic way. Not that realism, as in verisimitude, is what this experience of reading Los Locas is all about for me – but it nagged at me.
Nevertheless, that’s a rather minor sticking point, and the only reason that it did stick out at all is because otherwise the work is so transparent that I completely forget that I am reading a story, a book, a comic book, a graphic novel (whatever you want to call it) – I mean it’s like, you know those shows you go to where you are so transported into the music that you forget that you are at a show – when you are so absorbed you are oblivious to everything? – well, it’s like that.
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