PALOMAR, MI PALOMAR: Your two Love and Rockets links of the day: Sean Collins wants to know how he can stop worrying and learn to love Los Bros. Hernandez. He’s plowing through Music for Mechanics but finds it slow going. I can totally see that–I love M4M but I read it well after I’d already started to care about the characters. Sean’s problem, really, is that he feels like he needs to read a series from the beginning in order to get into it, and L&R; starts slow and rusty.

I can’t rightly improve on the suggestion here that he get over his usual aversion to starting in the middle, and try out some of the later books–The Death of Speedy, or Flies on the Ceiling, or maybe just stand in the store and leaf through books until something grabs him.

Now we turn to the Battle of Brother Against Brother. It’s funny, I never would have guessed that the comicsphere consensus is that Gilbert is a greater artist than Jaime, since, like Johnny Bacardi, I much prefer JH. This doesn’t matter a huge amount, since a) pretty much everyone acknowledges that both brothers are geniuses, and b) Gilbert did create the best L&R; book of all, Poison River.

Nonetheless, let me put in a couple words for Jaime’s particular genius. His drawings are sparer, more “in glorious black and white,” more elegantly stylized, more Weegee, less rough than his brother’s. Both are masters of facial expression, but Jaime’s pictures have that high-contrast gloss to them–a crisp, hot-lights noir feel with very black blacks. (Best showcase for this might be Chester Square.) Both brothers are known for their strong, appealing women, but I find Jaime’s chicas more knockabout and (somewhat!) less idealized–less the Generic Strong Woman. Both brothers seem to have peaked, sadly, but I’ve liked the quiet, postpunk denouements of Jaime’s characters better than the everyone-goes-to-America soapiness of Gilbert’s.

Again, all these comments should be taken with the understanding that I do agree that Gilbert is a one-in-a-zillion master of the art. To some extent, I’m just bein’ contrary. You should seek out and read both of these guys’ work, forthwith.