PALOMAR by Gilbert Hernandez

I picked up a copy of Gilbert Hernandez's PALOMAR from my local library and read it over the last few days. This is a big 500 page hardcover book of Hernandez's stories about the fictional Central American small town published in the first volume of LOVE AND ROCKETS. I'd read various bits of the book before, but quite a while ago, and most of it was completely new to me.

I liked it a lot more this time around, especially the first half of the book (which, oddly, is actually the stuff I had read before).

...and I just lost a longish post I wrote about it. Damn. Anyway, short form, first third of the book is a strong start, it gets really good in the middle, and I start to lose interest in the story (although the art is at its peak) with "Human Diastrophism". In general I liked the stories when they didn't focus on Luba and her family, and wasn't that interested when the characters started moving to America. But I did like it enough to reserve POISON RIVER and LOVE AND ROCKETS X, which focus on Luba and the characters in America respectively, from my library.