“Look Out for That Pin!”

Lovers of great comix (of which, I'm one) and of sexily neurotic chubettes (of which, ditto), owe it to themselves to rush to their local book or comics shoppe and dole out $49.95 for the recently released hardback of Jaime Hernandez's primo collection, Locos (Fantagraphics). Subtitled "The Maggie And Hopey Stories," the book collects the relevant tales from the first volume run of the ace alt comics title, Love And Rockets. For those not in the know, the titular heroines are a pair of So. Cal punkettes who have an on-again/off-again relationship. Maggie, a.k.a. Perla, is a daydreaming Hispanic with mechanical ability and a predilection for messing up her relationships big time. Initially rendered as ripely shapely, Mag gains weight over the course of the series – and, in one of her self-deflating fantasies ("Maggie the Mechanic or Perla the Prostitute") even imagines herself ballooning cartoonishly and exploding. (Think the girl has seen that "Pigs Is Pigs" cartoon too many times?)

There's more in the 700-page volume for FA readers; one of the ongoing characters, Maggie's Aunt Vicki, is a professional wrestler, and several extended plotlines ("House of Raging Women" most notably) take place in that world: lotsa full-bodied lady wrestlers rendered in Hernandez's wonderfully expressive style. The man has a wholehearted appreciation of BBW body types that even comes across in his background images of matronly Hispanic housewives. (He does not, for instance, shy away from including flashes of cellulite on Maggie's fulsome thighs.) Forget that whiney Bridget Jones – Maggie Chascarrillo is the real deal. . .