Read Lately: Heartbreak Soup

• If you are at all interested in independant comics, you've probably heard of Love and Rockets. I have many, many reasons for never reading the series before. First, it took me a good long while to shake off the superhero-centric bias. Not that it was ever that bad. But indy black-and-whites weren't on the radar back in the day. Second, anytime I did see a collection, it was some odd little slice of the story and I hate to jump into anything in the middle.


• That's two. I swear there were many, but I lost the rest when Blogger timed me out. Really.


• While age and maturity took care of the first problem, Fantagraphic Books took care of the second by producing this wonderfully designed collection of the first half of Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar epic. And I'm not throwing epic out there lightly. Heartbreak Soup tells the story of small town in an unnamed South or Central American country. It starts with the town banadora woman, Chelo, who is remembering her time as a midwife and the children she brought into the world. This one simple tale lays the groundwork for a story about the interactions of those children and the rest of the town that covers the next thirty or so years. And it's all right there from the beginning.


• If you're wondering, banadora is a professional bather. That means she gives men baths for a living. Who knew?


• The only problem I have with the book is the dead stop the story comes to at the end. The second half of the tale, Human Disatrophism, is set to be released in July 2007. Oh, how I loathe the waiting.