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Penny Century (2010)

by Jaime Hernández(Favorite Author)

4.31 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1606993429 (ISBN13: 9781606993422)

languge

English

genre

Graphic Novels & Comics

publisher

Fantagraphics

review 1: Fantagraphics is compiling "Los Bros" Hernandez's entire catalog, little by little. As someone who came to the seminal underground comic series Love and Rockets very late, I really appreciate these well-put together volumes. Some ("Maggie the Mechanic", "The Girl from Hoppers", "Perla La Loca") contain Jaime Hernandez's "Hoppers" stories, which follow a group of Chicano teenagers who came of age in the '80s Los Angeles punk scene from those tumultuous times all the way up through their present day travails. The other set ("Heartbreak Soup", "Human Diastrophism", "Beyond Palomar"), consists of his brother Gilbert's sprawling, magical-realism tinged tale of a fictional Mexican border town, Palomar. One other volume, "Amor y Cohetes", collects all the stories that don't n... moreeatly fit into either set."Penny Century" is the fourth set of Jaime's stories, mostly from the late 90s. Like all of Jaime's comics, it is hilarious, sexy, heartbreaking, and bizarre (sometimes all at once)...the work of a man who has an incredible imagination and lets it loose on the page, while still staying true to his characters. My favorites in this edition were the wonderfully kinetic story of the female wrestling circuit that opens it up, "Whoa, Nellie!", and the whimsically realized journey Maggie takes to get her life back on track in "The Race." Hoppers is a rich world with such dynamic, lively, interesting characters that I always enjoy coming back to it (and will shortly with the latest release to date, "Esperanza").If you're a comic fan, and looking to give Love and Rockets a try...I'd suggest taking a look at the aforementioned "Maggie the Mechanic" volume Fantagraphics put out for a good introduction.
review 2: I've become totally obsessed with this series! I bought the next graphic novel yesterday and devoured it in one sitting! This was slightly lighter than the last couple of volumes, there was no prostitution, drugs or gangs. There was wrestling, angstful relationships, flashbacks and more surreality. I loved the Maggie getting divorced storyline, particularly at the end when her friends were all confused as to when she had gotten married! It was nice to see more of Penny and her own brand of madness, particularly her discovering super hero comics as a teenager. I love how complicated the relationships in this series get. Hopey so desperately in love with Maggie but never being able to pull it together for the two of them, her dating Guy was particularly funny. Maggie still terribly confused about what she wants. I liked Izzy's attempts to pull herself together and the story of her as a kid. I must admit I wasn't that fond of the new characters in this story, the new ex- Mrs Costigan and her daughter, but overall I really loved the book. I also really didn't like some of the hairstyles for Maggie and Hopey, please our heroines don't need buns! They looked so much cuter once they took their hair down. But I love the fact that they're characters in a comic book that have different, and not always flattering, hairstyles. This really just feels like a surreal version of life, rather than a comic. I'm still completely and totally in love with this series! less

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