An American in Palomar wraps up this issue and it’s not really like the first installment at all. Beto still has some stuff from the American photographer’s perspective, but it’s much more a regular Palomar story. There’s no more supernatural implications. It just doesn’t come up again.

Instead, it’s about how Carmen, Tonantzín, and Luba deal with the reality of the American’s intentions. Carmen not because she’s involved but because she’s got to get involved. Luba and Tonantzín get the biggest scenes, though Augustín finally gets something to do besides hang around. There’s even some nice character development (for everyone except the American).

The story also implies the third person narrator is very close to Carmen. Both through the actual narration and how Beto focuses on Carmen for a reaction shot. So I’ve been feeling like she hasn’t been a part of the series enough since the jump ahead, but maybe she’s always present. Makes sense.

There’s some excellent art, with Beto exploring Palomar visually without breaking from the story. It’s a great finish, just entirely different from where Beto seemed to be taking it last issue.

Then Jaime gets the rest of the issue. First up is Locas, with Maggie and Hopey still stuck at Izzy’s, though trying to get out. Maggie kind of considers going back to a garage–just no longer interested in a prosolar future.

It’s only a five page story. Much of it involves Izzy promising Maggie a car if she can fix it. Then Maggie trying to get to Hopey’s show and her setbacks.

There’s more with the band than usual and more with Hopey interacting with her bandmates alone. They’ve had group scenes before and Hopey took Maggie around recently, but Hopey’s now got scenes to herself. Well, with other characters, but without Maggie and without a group. Jaime’s getting more comfortable giving Hopey time; Locas does just fine without the glamour and adventure of Mechanics.

Lots of blacks from Jaime (but not always silhouettes), some comic strip sensibilities, and some character development. Just what a five page story ought to do.

Then Jaime’s got a nine page Rena story. Tse Tse shows up for a bit, but most of it is a flashback telling the story of one of Rena’s wrestling friends. Duke makes a cameo and even Bernie Carbo, though Jaime’s not ready to tell that story (the one he hinted about ten issues ago). Instead, it’s about this other wrestler and Rena.

Rena’s such a strong protagonist. It’s only her second strip to herself–and the previous one was a one pager–and she’s fantastic. A lot of the time Jaime just has other characters talking about an off-page Rena; he always gets Rena caught up once she appears, recentered, once again the obvious protagonist of the story.

It’s a sad, scary, funny, tragic story. The finale sort of cliffhangs, but more just promises more Rena stories.

Love and Rockets #14 is another fine issue. Beto wins with the American in Palomar, but Jaime launching Rena in her own strip so successfully is no small potatoes. Even though the Locas is technically the least impressive story, it’s still damn great comics. It couldn’t be anything but.

There’s no resolution to the Rocky and Fumble this issue, but Locas is back. Right away, with Roy Cowboy (a comic strip character who’s had a couple appearances in non-Locas stuff from Jaime) introducing the full names of all the girls. Except Penny. For some reason no Penny.

It’s cute since Daphne, Terry, and Beatríz have been making appearances (or been being discussed) in the book since early on.

And it’s a smiling Izzy.

The story itself is about Hopey and Maggie trying to figure out where to move. Maggie’s just back from her resurrection, which no one has really talked to her about, certainly not Hopey, and things are tense. She’s got a crap new job and never wants to mechanic again.

The strip is Hopey and Maggie going from place to place, talking to people about the living situation, bickering, getting into arguments. Izzy comes in as the voice of reason at the end.

It’s a really nice postscript to Maggie’s extraordinary adventures in the previous storyline, because life just kept going for Hopey and everyone else. And although the world stopped when everyone thought Maggie was dead, Maggie wasn’t thinking about everyone thinking she was dead. She was trying to live.

It’s funny, with some great–bright–composition from Jaime. And a great comic strip finish.

Then Beto’s got Heraclio and Pepo taking a friend from out of town–but not far out of town, just not a Palomar resident–around looking at girls. It calls out most of the female characters before the visitor settles on Tonantzin. And there’s a nice bit for Heraclio and Carmen, though–again–not much for Carmen to do.

Beto’s art is so smooth. The strip just zips along.

The first two stories have a lot of walking in them. For the movement, Beto wins. Palomar is smaller scale and almost every single panel is full of its personality. And there’s a good punch line from Luba, showing off how well Beto’s constructed the plotting.

Then a sadly one page Rena story from Jaime, another epilogue to the previous Mechanics arc. It reintroduces Tse Tse, who was in the first big Mechanics story, and has some lovely art. It’s just too short. Especially since Jaime’s got these “widescreen” establishing panels cropped to fit.

Then another Jaime. A “Young Locas” three-page strip about thirteen-year-old Maggie deciding to be a mechanic even if it wasn’t girly enough.

It’s a good strip, with some great character moments for Maggie, and some nice foreshadowing. It’s also really, really dark for a second, completely against the existing mood of the piece.

Finally, another Palomar, the first part of “An American in Palomar.” Some pretentious fake hippie photojournalist wants to document poor Indian people being poor and miserable and decides on Palomar. Diana and Theo get the most to do of the existing characters, while Luba allows herself a daydream, and then there’s the giant mother goddess temple outside town, which is making its first appearance.

It’s the only two-parter (even if it’s just the first part) in the whole issue and Beto’s plotting is excellent. He’s deft in his changing perspectives (from the photographer to the townspeople) and follows a fairly strict three act structure. It’s deliberate and rather successful thanks to that effort.

So next issue is “American, Part Two” and, maybe–hopefully–the next Rocky and Fumble story. Everyone’s okay in Locas right now. Rocky and Fumble aren’t okay.

This issue of Love and Rockets is different from the table of contents–no Mechanics, no Locas. Jaime’s doing a Rocky and Fumble and it’s in between two Palomar. And these are kind of different Palomar tales.

The first gives Tonantzin a feature. She’s been a supporting cast member since the “jump ahead,” and she might have even had a brief appearance in the first story, but now she’s front and center. Beto had made her sort of a ditz before, especially in the party issue. Not anymore. Now she’s a goddess. Kind of literally.

The story is simple, slice of life. She gets up, gets her sister, gets her assistant, goes slug hunting. The finale pulls back to give the story a narrator, who can see the characters–Tonantzin and her sister–for the goddesses they embody. It’s an awesome little strip.

And fun. It’s a fun Palomar. Will Jaime have fun with Rocky and Fumble, his fun strip?

No. He’ll do an intense, dangerous, scary action strip. Rocky and Fumble go to visit Rocky’s niece, who’s just a few years younger. The niece has outer space in her backyard. You climb the fence into outer space, go to other planets. Thanks to Rocky having Fumble, they can go into outer space. And they do. They go to another planet.

Where a crazy guy kidnaps Fumble because the guy wants to kill all robots. So Rocky has to find people to help her rescue Fumble. Very, very intense stuff.

And then there’s an emotionally devastating hard cliffhanger, which incorporates the reality of Rocky and Fumble with its fantastical elements. Serious stuff. Maybe a little too serious. Jaime apparently wasn’t satisified making everyone worry about Maggie, time to worry about Rocky and Fumble too.

Then comes Beto’s second Palomar story. It’s all about Heraclio and Luba. Now, they met in the first Palomar story and this one–in a flashback in the flashback–revises the original relationship between the two characters. It’s a comedy strip, taking all the serious stuff Beto has been looking at, and presenting it slice of life and comedy.

Kind of exactly what he should’ve done to make the party in issue ten work, but whatever. He’s on point here. However, he’s so on point it’s a somewhat less exciting success than his first story this issue. Beto’s not going new places, he’s going familiar places and figuring out how to package them to reveal new things. Heraclio and the guys on the town, for instance, was introduced in the Heraclio and the guys story a few issues ago. The guys and their current situations informs the flashback. The first layer flashback. Beto likes doing the flashback in the flashback, particularly because it lets him get his third person Palomar narration on.

The composition styles are a little different too. The first one is more ambitious with composition and the physical comedy. The second one is more traditional. At least traditional for Beto. Some gorgeous stuff too.

Jaime’s art is something else too. He’s doing action in a way he’s never done before in Rockets, with sometimes silly looking characters. Not just sci-fi looking, but silly looking. As always, he stays focused on the story as it plays through Rocky’s expressions. The strip is about her character development through these fantastic adventures, or at least fantastic looking adventures, and Jaime makes sure the reader can track her expressions.

Killer cliffhanger on it though.

So, different–Jaime going serious in a usually light strip, Beto going light in his more serious strip. So good too.

This issue of Love and Rockets is a weird one. Beto’s single story is a Errata Stigmata, who hasn’t had her own story in ages. Mario even gets a credit on her story, his first credit in ages. But before that strange, profoundly disturbing entry, Jaime’s finale for the current Mechanics arc.

Jaime has twelve pages to wrap up Maggie and Rena being thought dead and definitely lost on the bigger than it looks island. And the Race, Dot, and Maggie triangle. And Hopey thinking Maggie’s dead. And some other things.

Instead of wrapping up the story, Jaime ignores most of it. Race and Dot have a story mostly separate from the love triangle, kind of a “pro solar mechanic and reporter in political danger zone” action-comedy. Hopey was shipped off to her mom last issue and Jaime doesn’t do anything with that subplot. He just brings Hopey home with some comedic exposition and no reaction shot to Maggie’s being alive before the finale.

Rena and Maggie do get a nice plot, but Jaime’s focus on Rena overshadows everything else. She’s the key to the story, something Jaime only started embracing in the last two issues. It does reduce Maggie’s part in their trying escape; at least she’s got that love triangle.

Not.

Jaime skips it to go for a finish without resolution. There’s some drama, but none for Maggie.

Penny actually gets more to do that Hopey and it’s just her and Costigan having what ends up a cute scene.

Jaime’s going for lackluster on the narrative payoff. It’s an intentional move. It doesn’t come off as well as the story deserves. It feels forced and contrived.

Gorgeous art though. Twice the amount of pages–Jaime is at twelve here–and he probably would’ve had enough space to plot it better.

And then Errata from Beto. Tears from Heaven: The life and times of Errata Stigmata. It’s an origin story. A completely and utterly horrifying origin story.

Before this story, Errata stories have had various settings. The first story has her in some cyberpunk totalitarist future where practically the entire speaking cast is female (and queer). And Errata seems perfectly at home. Then there’s one where Beto’s basically doing a three page comedy strip with Errata and a boyfriend. Perfectly at home there. She gets mentioned as a comic book in one of the Music with Monsters strips and she cameoed in Beto’s Palomar party last issue.

But Tears from Heaven is something else entirely. It’s this nightmarish backstory about orphaned Errata being exploited by her guardians–her aunt and uncle–once her stigmata develops. Except before the stigmata develops, there’s a lot of psychological abuse, often directly sexually related or implied. Or just hinted enough to make the stomach queasy. It’s a twelve page story, so not short, but it’s astounding how unpleasant Beto can make things.

And Errata basically doesn’t talk. She’s this tragic kid. It’s a combination of heartbreaking (while empathizing with Errata) and utterly revolting (while reading the comic). In some ways Beto frontloads the revolting, with the finale being a nice despondent heartbreaker.

It’s a lot.

Mario gets an “additional material” credit so who knows.

The last story is a three page Rocky and Fumble. They’re run away from home again, this time going out to sea on a rowboat, in search of an unexplored island.

It’s a nice strip–short–and well-illustrated. It doesn’t quite provide the emotional relief needed after Errata but it comes pretty close. Another page would’ve done it. Jaime tends to experiment with truncation in Rocky and Fumble when it comes to reveals; in Mechanics, he’s a lot more visual about it. Rocky and Fumble is more comic strip transitions. Jump cuts.

Jaime seems rushed with the three pages, both writing and art. But it’s still a charming three pages.

Love and Rockets #10 is a celebration. There are some original character design sketches and even a portfolio section with the pre-published work from Los Bros. Jaime opens the issue with a fourth wall breaking Locas one-pager, Beto closes the issue with a fourth wall breaking one-pager. Jaime’s ends up being more about Hopey and Maggie (who are still in the middle of a very dramatic Mechanics) while Beto’s is all about his artistic creations hounding him.

Each brother has a feature. Jaime the aforementioned Mechanics installment. Everyone still thinks Maggie and Rena are dead, leading to some beautiful mourning panels from Jaime. He gets to use all that black. And since some the issue is in darkness (the tunnels where Maggie and Rena are traveling, Hopey shut off from the world), it’s much more than silhouette.

Maggie and Rena’s plot takes them to a native village–giving Jaime his first major cheesecake in a while–while Race gets close to Dot Winks again. It’s hard to hate Dot anymore. Though I can see why Penny is done with Race; even when he means well, he’s sort of a doof.

And Hopey gets to muscle through some of her mourning. She even gets rid of the blonde dye job.

Then there are thirteen pages of sketches. Some awesome stuff. Makes you wonder what Music for Monsters could’ve been.

And then Palomar. Beto throws a party. It’s a literal party. The residents of Palomar are having a cookout. Everyone’s there, including Beto’s other (human) Love and Rockets creations as well as all of Jaime’s principals. And Frida.

Beto has a wandering narrative, starting by following Heraclio around the party, then passing the baton to Luba for a while, then Pipo (returning for the first time since issue three–all grown up and beyond glamorous)–then to Tonantzin, then he wanders between them all. We find out Pipo’s not just glamourous, she’s being physically abused by her husband (that dipshit Gato, also not seen since issue three). The nasty old sheriff is back (though Chelo appears to have forgotten her previous, clandestine sexual relationship with him).

On one hand, it’s great catchup with the cast. On the other, it’s Beto dealing with some serious things–particularly Pipo, but also the would-be rapist ex-sheriff–in a cartoonish manner. It’s beautifully executed, in terms of art and pacing. Beto excels at juggling all the characters and plot threads, it’s just a tad too functional.

It’s a fine tenth issue though; Los Bros have accomplished a lot. A breather is all right; fine for Love and Rockets, after all, is still excellent comics. It’s also a little jarring to see the cast in color (on the front and back covers). Well, everyone except Izzy. Jarring in a good way.