LOVE AND ROCKETS

   US COMIC book created in 1981 by the brothers Gilbert (1957-), Jaime and Mario Hernandez. \#1, self-published, featured a 40pp future-apocalyptic chase-thriller, "BEM", by Gilbert; it introduced tail-chasing supersleuth Castle Radium as well as Luba, a continuing star of much of Gilbert'soutput. Also in \#1 were some short pieces by Jaime; one of these, "Mechan-X", introduced the characters Maggie, Hopey and Rand Race, whofeatured in \#2's 40pp story "Mechanics", which told of a group of prosolar mechanics (essentially, super-repairmen) who are trying to fix a crashed rocket-ship in a primordial jungle. Except for later references to Maggie's prosolar job and a brief strip about a little Black girl in outerspace ("Rocky"), the sf elements have since disappeared from LAR - a fact often regarded by the magazine's enthusiasts as being all to the good. Fantagraphics has published LAR since reprinting \#1 in 1982, and alsobrought out Jaime's "Mechanics" as a 3-issue colour comic in 1985.

   SW