Birdland (1990) #1

So, I wasn’t actually aware Birdland is a porno comic.

I also wasn’t aware it was from during Love and Rockets: Volume One’s run and not immediately following it, meaning Fritz Herrera from Birdland goes on to become Luba’s half-sister in Love and Rockets. I was also unaware strippers Inez and Bang Bang are from the early issues of Love and Rockets, where they fought monsters and killer snowmen and did not have an affair with the same guy, one of them unknowingly. That guy is Fritz’s husband. And then Fritz’s sister—Petra, also Luba’s half-sister in Love and Rockets, wishes she were having an affair with Fritz’s husband.

The husband’s name is Mark. One of the issue’s running gag is he almost has an earth-shattering epiphany when he has or causes an orgasm.

I’m not sure what else there is to say about the comic. Creator Beto Hernandez sets it up as a series of sex scenes and reveals thanks to the identity of the participants. Bang Bang and Mark, Petra fantasizing about Mark, Bang Bang and Inez dancing, Fritz and her patient, Inez and Mark, Fritz and her patient (revealing he’s a patient), then Inez in for therapy with another big reveal. It’s a bunch of sex and gotcha connections.

Even though Inez and Bang Bang didn’t make it through the second year of the Love and Rockets comic (and I thought Beto moved Fritzi over to a porno comic, not brought her out of one), I sort of thought I’d remember them. But the comic opens with a flashback to what seems to be Palomar and Bang Bang and Inez were separate from those stories. Though maybe I’m not remembering.

I feel like it takes a lot of work to contextualize Birdland #1when it’s really just an x-rated soap opera with most of the soap opera cut out.

Good Beto art, I guess. He’s got some mildly amusing running gags. Knowing it’s Bang Bang and Inez, I wish they were fighting killer snowmen instead.