ComicWorm Speaks!- Love From The Shadows Review

ComicWorm Speaks!

Love from the Shadows (Love and Rockets)

by Gilbert Hernandez

****

The Story: The third in Gilbert Hernandez’s line of original hardcovers featuring Love and Rockets’ “Fritz” in her guise as a Z-movie actress (the first two were Chance in Hell and The Troublemakers) is a trippy thriller that stars Fritz in no fewer than three roles.

A beautiful waitress (Fritz, of course) and her hospital nurse brother (also Fritz) visit their estranged father, a once successful but now retired writer (amazingly enough, also Fritz), in order to find out the true reason why their mother committed suicide. When dad’s health fails, the siblings are then more concerned with the money he might leave them.

The story weaves in and out of reality and hallucination and possibly back in forth in time, and to complicate things further, the sister is sexually obsessed with a mysterious man throughout the tale ― or is it her brother (at one point posing as his sister so that he might gain his and her inheritance) that is so hot and bothered by this mystery stud? And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. There’s also a venture into ghost territory, with frauds bilking the gullible and Fritz’s character(s) right in the middle.

Lets get this out of the way, the main attraction to this book was the well-endowed women both on the cover and on the pages within. Stereotypical, anti-feminist, sexist and very, very, arousing. It can’t be helped. 

The wasp-waisted, huge breasted women are nice but that is just one aspect of this work’s distinctive style. The story is drown in black and white with a great emphasis on shadows and light. Film-Noir is a very dramatic style that really needs more exposure in popular media. 

An interesting thing to note is that this book and the artist it reflects: harkens back to the olden days of smut and sex. There was no internet, video and photography was not as common. There were videos but they had to be bought or rented or found on a tv channel late at night. Comics and magazines were often the way for young boys (and a few girls) to get their first taste of the delights of the mature woman. The noir-esque atmosphere of the artwork and the old-fashioned style reinforces the illusion that we are reading some reprint from the seventies. 

There is a pulpy quality to the art style, following an aesthetic from the mid-twentieth century. It has a minimalist approach that makes it more universal.  

This is ComicWorm’s first experience with the work of Gilbert Hernandez and was thusly unaware this was the third in a series. Ultimately, though, that should not detract from the quality of the work. Well…

The story is extremely hard to make out. Surrealism appears to be the flavor of voice for this work. As best as ComicWorm can make out: it involves a person named Fritz, who is able to swap appearances and genders, who meets up with a brother to discuss their father’s inheritance. All the while, the woman sleeps around with strangers. It is very confusing. The surrealist manner of the storyline appears to be a signature of the artist’s work and apparently has been to some great acclaim. However, in the case of the Worm, it was way too confusing and dark to derive any real enjoyment. 

Final Verdict: The buxom women are nice to look at, but honestly, the strange story negates most of the pleasure. If one wishes to look at women’s breasts, go online. 

Two out of Five Stars

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