Birdland Volume Two is a comic for all the people who thought Gilbert Hernandez couldn’t do an entire issue of people screwing and still have it land with some kind of deeper impact. The last series ended winking at profundity, and the mood cares into this issue. Beto opens the comic the dawn of time, zooming in to Earth, where a couple dinosaurs are getting it on, and you find out what a T-Rex with a dong looks like.

Thanks, Beto.

Nearby, a couple of cave people get it on, then they become another set of people—straight to the modern age, Beto doesn’t keep with it and go through all three ages–and then another set of people and another set of people and so on. There are scenes in the psychiatrist’s office and a different doctor using the magic necklace from the last series. Fritz’s horny hypnotizer or whatever.

The new psychiatrist might be a Palomar or Luba, like, she looks familiar. But all of Beto’s beefcakes and cheesecakes look the same, just with different hairstyles and bra sizes, so keeping track of the many participants would be time-consuming and not really worth the effort. Because the story’s got nothing to do with them. Beto goes an entirely different route—taking a healthy jaunt through what appears to be a tie-in to the finale of the previous series—and ends up on a simple, visually evocative (but not at all pornographic) epilogue.

Thanks to the route, the ending’s more than fine; it’s nice. It helps the art’s phenomenal on the two or three panels. It’s like Beto wanted to show he could still deliver concisely after spending an issue of bombastic pornography. He’s even figured out how to make it ambitious, having one sequence where everyone morphs into their partner mid-coitus, and the visuals on the transformations are excellent.

Bang Bang has a future story, which means sex, spacesuits, and rocket ships. The whole thing plays like a musical montage, and only Beto knows the exact music. It seems like there’d be a lot of chanting, actually. He tries to make it audial with one of his art devices. It’s actually kind of interesting.

Like, if the first volume had been done the same way, it wouldn’t have needed three issues or so many non-sex scenes.

The first volume was a curiosity. This (twenty-eight years and counting) single issue volume is closer to being worth a look for, pardon the expression, art wanks.

I think this issue of Birdland is the best? I mean, I haven't really worked out what constitutes "best" for a porn comic, but Gilbert Hernandez has got a lot of variety in the art here. Like, combinations-wise. Literal orbiting orgy with issue's entire cast.

Though not the series's cast. One of the characters from last issue has disappeared.

It's also the best written, but for some particular reasons. First, there aren't any of the bickering siblings scenes for Petra and Fritz. So Fritz doesn't come off like a villain. Also, it's about people with their crushes, so some of the drama has this hint of sincerity. Finally, there's a transactional nature to the sex to further the plot.

Obviously, it's unclear how much effort Beto's putting into the story over the art.

But there are some excellent dramatic moves in the issue. The ending is a deus ex machina out of Plan 9—everyone just follows everyone else onto a flying saucer, but Beto hasn't got the pages to show everyone filing on, so there's some surprise instead. And there's an epilogue suggesting a bit more playfulness with the narrative, along with an Errata Stigmata appearance. Not really a cameo because she's just there for texture and effect.

All told, Birdland does have enough character drama for a comic. Almost. The epilogue changes things a bit and skips a resolve for the existing cast as we know them… but there's enough drama.

Like, Petra and Simon not realizing they're perfect for each other is tragic. Their star-crossed crushes on their siblings-in-law are sad. It's fine. They're very sympathetic. Well, Simon's sympathetic.

However, sympathetic character drama is also not the point of Birdland. Birdland's about the porno, not the story, regardless of the epilogue's potential profundity, which seems to be Beto flexing philosophical at the very last minute when he doesn't have to do anything else with the material.

Oh, good grief. Either I missed it, or creator Gilbert Hernandez didn’t make it clear enough—the guy in love with Fritz is her brother-in-law. It’s important to this issue because it turns out the brother-in-law, Simon, is carrying on with Fritz’s sister, Petra, who’s in love with Mark. Mark being Fritz’s husband and Simon’s brother.

Also, Simon is fooling around with Inez.

The issue starts with Inez worried about Bang Bang, who’s not at work and has been missing a few days. We don’t actually find out what Bang Bang was doing between last issue and this one, but we get some hints in a reveal. Presumably, Beto will clear it up next issue, though also maybe not; there are a couple of things he established last issue he doesn’t continue with this issue. I also don’t remember him trying to rhyme so many ribald remarks. Lots of rhyming ribald remarks this issue.

But once Bang Bang returns, another dancer—La Valda—is watching her and Inez’s show to seize up the competition. La Valda might have been in the last issue. There are so many characters, and they’re just saying the same names over and over. It’s challenging to keep track and doesn’t seem to matter.

La Valda’s Mark’s ex-wife, and they get together before she gets together with Bang Bang. I think Inez is mooning over Simon? Or at least wants Simon to give her a job. I mean, the narrative’s obviously just a bunch of slight gags to string together the sex.

I also think it’s a better issue? Like, Simon and Petra are star-crossed (just not to each other), making them more sympathetic. Though Beto does acknowledge Fritz is basically a Republic serial villain as she hypnotizes her male patients into sex. Still, I’ll bet she doesn’t get in trouble for it next issue.

It’s fine? Like, there’s some good art. It’s a little weird when the non-sex setups feel like regular Love and Rockets though. I kept expecting Petra to be worried about her niece’s fitness empire or whatever.

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.