Bullnecks and Bracelets

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

Israel has wondered what happened to twin sister for years. She disappeared during an eclipse. One minute she was there and the next she wasn't. It has been probably 20 years since that day. Israel is convinced that she's still alive. He travels around during the story talking to various people.

Duck Feet

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

Luba has fallen into a pit. Only Guadalupe, one of her daughters, knows about it. Luba sends her to get food but is too embarrassed to tell her to get someone else to help her get out of the pit. Guadalupe tries to follow Luba's instructions but she can’t find food and then she gets distracted by some other kids who are watching a bruja.

For the Love of Carmen

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

Heraclio narrates a story about himself and Carmen. It is mostly a look back at how they met and their lives before they got married. There are lots of moments in this story from other stories in this collection. Aside from being a story in its own right it helps to weave together the other stories and the inhabitants of Palomar more tightly than they sometimes have seemed up to this point.

There lots of panels. The story is told through narration and there is no dialogue.

12 pages

The Way Things’re Going

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

This story is told from the perspective of Vicente’s roommate. He is not named in this story. I don’t recall seeing him before. Both guys are down on their luck. I think they live in San Fideo, it isn’t Palomar. Considering the length and the medium, the story is very text heavy. It is told entirely through captions. There is no dialogue. As with many of these shorter stories it feels like part of the bigger story and incomplete by itself.

4 pages

Love Bites

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

At the center of this story is a fight, a verbal argument (or two) between Heraclio and Carmen. It drives them apart for a short time but eventually they reunite. There’s more to the story than just that but every time I try to describe the story in more detail it feels as though I am missing something essential.

11 pages

Holidays in the Sun

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

Jesus tries to maintain his sanity in prison. He tries not to think of Laura, his wife. Memories of good and bad times with her keep invading his thoughts. He pushes thoughts of Laura out by imagining good times with other women, namely Luba and Tonantzín. Towards the end of the story something happens within the prison that changes Jesus’ perspective. It ends with him seeming to find some peace with his thoughts of Laura.

Boys Will Be Boys

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

6 pages

Heraclio hangs out with Anacleto and Pepo and ogles many of the women in Palomar: Tonantzín, Luba, and several others including Carmen, Heraclio’s wife. Anacleto doesn’t get lucky but Heraclio finds a pleasant surprise waiting for him at home.

An American in Palomar

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

Howard Miller, an American photographer, comes to Palomar to take pictures in the hopes of making a name for himself back in the United States of America. He doesn’t seem to want pictures that paint Palomar in a favorable light. He connects gets Luba and Tonantzín and gets them excited about getting their picture taken. He leads them on but ultimately disappoints them both and is punished for it.

Slug Fest

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

A brief introduction to Tonantzín, Diana, and Babosas (big edible slugs). This story looks like it is basically a prelude to the next one or at the very least the end of this one dovetails with the next one. I’m not sure at this point if Tonantzín is in the next one.

The Reticent Heart

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

A multilayered story which begins with Heraclio writing a letter to Jesus who is still in jail. He has been there since Heraclio and their other friends brought him back after he ran off, after threatening his wife and daughter with a knife in The Laughing Sun.

The story jumps back to a few years before to a night when Heraclio, Jesus, Satch, and Vincente gave Luba a ride home. Before they ran into Luba they spent most of the night driving around San Fideo drinking beer and trying to meet women. On the way back to Palomar they had to stop so that Luba could run into the bushes to pee. Jesus, who had a long standing crush on Luba, gets into an argument with Satch about Luba while she is out of earshot, presumably.

The story jumps back once again and reveals an incident when Heraclio was 15 and working for Luba. His job was to hand out fliers around Palomar for her bathing business. He was about ready to quit. He went to tell Luba but she had other things on her mind. After he bathed her she helped him relieve some tension which resulted in her having her second daughter, Guadalupe. Up until now it was always believed that Manuel was the father of Guadalupe. No one but Heraclio and Luba know the truth.

I really like this story. I like how it digs into Heraclio’s past and Luba’s past. I like the double flashback. I like the different ways that Luba is portrayed. The last bit made me flip back to Ecce Homo, to the moment with Luba and Heraclio in that story. I like seeing something in one story linking up with something in another story. It makes this collection feel like more than just an anthology.

Ecce Homo

by Gilbert Hernandez
Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup 

Many characters from Palomar mix and mingle at a party. A number of characters who I recall seeing in Maggie the Mechanic make cameo appearances, starting with Maggie and Hopey.

Is there a thread that holds this story together? There is the party and and there are lots of interactions but it lacks a plot. Some of the characters I recall seeing before, some I do not. It mostly seems to be about the characters and their interactions. I am not going to attempt to catalog all of the interactions. I may reread all or part of this story in the future if it is referenced in a future story.

On Isidro’s Beach

by Gilbert Hernandez
Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup

Luba takes her daughters (Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, Casimira) to the beach. Tipin Tipin goes with them. Guadalupe spies a couple of teens playing doctor. Luba tries relaxing but a shabby looking man approaches them. It is Isidro Rivas. He claims to own the beach.

This is just a little vignette and does not feel like a story all by itself.

The Laughing Sun

by Gilbert Hernandez
Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup

Jesus threatens Laura, his wife, and his daughter with a knife and then runs off into the hills. Heraclio gathers together the old gang in the hopes of finding Jesus before he injures anyone.

They follow his trail as best they can. They argue among themselves. They have a couple adventures along the way. In the end they find him in a cave. He explains why he lost it and started waving around a knife. They explain that his daughter and wife are fine.

This is a good story with a main thrust and lots of little vignettes that help to fill it in and make it less straight forward than it otherwise might be.

The Mystery Wen

by Gilbert Hernandez
Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup

Heraclio gets concerned about a bump on the top of his head. Everyone seems to have an opinion about it. He doesn’t know what to do about it. He frets about going to see a doctor. He also worries about what could happen if he doesn’t go see a doctor.

The Whispering Tree

by Gilbert Hernandez
Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup

Guadalupe introduces Doralis to the Whispering Tree. Guadalupe wants to scare her sister but in the end she gets scared too.

Short, humorous but not really a story as much as it is a vignette.

Act of Contrition

By Gilbert Hernandez
Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup

Part 1

Luba goes out for a night of dancing with Archie Ruiz, someone she hasn't seen in quite some time. She gets the dress she wears that night from Martín el Loco. He just happened to have a box of dresses and was walking around Palomar giving them away.

This story clearly takes place a few to several years after Heartbreak Soup. Some of the guys who were teenagers in the earlier story are now older but probably no more than early to mid 20s. Pipo doesn't appear in the story but there is a reference to the fact that she got married.

The story opens focusing on Martín but I think it's pretty clear from flipping through it that it is a story about Luba.

Part 2

Luba and Archie go out dancing some more. Eventually Archie gets tired of watching her dance with other men. He acts concerned for her daughters. She isn't interested in him in a romantic way. He seems to be growing weary of getting the cold shoulder from Luba.

There are a couple of flashbacks to Luba's and Archie's shared past, a decade and a half ago. One flashback is narrated by Archie and the other by Luba.

Part 3

Archie realizes he has made a mistake and regrets what he said to Luba. Chance brings the two of them together again when Luba travels to San Fideo to get the movie projector fixed. There she runs into Archie but she isn't ready to give in to his desire for her. He is still reluctant to tell her that he is a mortician.

There's a scary moment (that only lasts for a page or two) where I thought the story was going to take a turn for the worse. There have already been a few deaths in this book. I was glad to find my concern for the well being of the characters in this story quickly soothed.

Martín el Loco shows up again, just as Archie and Luba are starting to get hot and heavy. Archie loses his temper. Things don't look good for Luba and Archie.

I'm not sure what the exact thrust of this story is. How does it fit in to the bigger picture? What is the bigger picture? Is there a bigger picture? No idea but I like how real the story feels. Luba and Archie are two people struggling to connect. It isn't easy for them. I like reading stories like that, especially when they are illustrated as nicely as this one is.

Toco

by Gilbert Hernandez
Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup

Toco wanders around town. He is picked up by a child molester who takes him to the movies. Toco was excited cause he got to go to see a movie, which was about the end of the world.

The child molester gets run off by someone who recognizes him for what he is. Toco eventually meets up with Pipo, Vincent, and Jesus. They were at the beach.

If all these stories are set in the same version of Palomar then this one must take place just a little before Heartbreak Soup, because Toco is still alive and Pipo looks more or less like she did in that story.

This is the shortest story yet at just 4 pages.

A Little Story

by Gilbert Hernandez

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup

Before reading this story I went back and reread Chelo's Burden. It had been about a year since I last read it. There were some details in there that helped me to make better sense of what happened in Heartbreak Soup, details which meant little to nothing to me at the time that I first read Chelo's Burden.

A Little Story takes place a few years before Heartbreak Soup. Pipo still has long hair and plays soccer with the boys. The boys won't let Stach play with them. A supernatural element is introduced in the form of giant monstrous statues that are found outside of town.

Long-haired Pipo looks nothing like teenage Pipo. I have trouble reconciling the fact that they are both the same person.

Heartbreak Soup (Part 2)

by Gilbert Hernandez

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup

Overall the story seems to veer this way and that a lot. It is hard to tell if there is a central character. There doesn't seem to be one. If anything the focus seems to be on the community of Palomar as a whole.

Manuel pushes things a little too far with Pipo and winds up dead by the end of the chapter. I'm little confused as to the identity of the killer. It seems like it was a crime of passion but it was all a little confusing. I couldn't tell who shot him.

Before he died Manuel knocked up both Pipo and Luba and probably a few other women in Palomar. Just for the record Pipo was 14 and Manuel was 26, not sure on Luba's age but I'm pretty sure she's Isn't a teenager.

Other stuff happens. Toco dies. Chelo and Luba make peace after they get locked up in jail together.

Carmen doesn't get as much time in the spotlight but she gets a few choice lines. I particularly liked the panel of Lucia pushing Carmen on the tire swing.

Heraclio sees dead people. I'm not sure what's up with that or what to make of it. It seems like a loose end. It just makes him a little strange and different from the rest of the guys.

I'm not blown away by any of this but I'm still enjoying the journey especially the way Beto tells stories visually.

Heartbreak Soup (Part 1)

Reprinted in Heartbreak Soup
by Gilbert Hernandez

Why did I put this book down after I read the first story. That was just after SPX 2016, where I bought the book and got it signed by Beto, the author. SPX 2017 is a few days away as I write this. *sigh*

There are a lot of characters in this story. It seems to follow or focus on a few of them: Carmen, Heraclio, Pipo, and Tipin Tipin. The latter doesn't have much to say, Tipin Tipin's unconscious for a good bit of this chapter but he seems to be a focal point for other characters. He's down on his luck. He's under the house where he used to live. How he got there is a bit unclear. Even after some of the neighborhood kids pull him out he needs to be carried to somewhere safe. By the end of the chapter he is back under the house.

Carmen is the one who gets some of the boys in the neighborhood to pull Tipin Tipin out from under the house. She crawls under there herself but can't move him without help. She lives in Palomar like everyone else in this story. Her mother is out of town at the moment. She, Augustin, and Lucia, her younger siblings, are playing in the street when they hear about Tipin Tipin. It's a little unclear why Carmen takes responsibility for getting him out. She's fairly young, probably 8-10 years of age.

Heraclio is one of the boys who helps pull Tipin Tipin out from under the house . He's a teenager maybe 15 or 16 and new to Palomar. He has a flat top haircut. He gets a bit sick from drinking beer with some of the other boys. Still partly drunk he starts hanging up fliers for Luba and learns the hard way where not to hang the fliers.

Luba, like Heraclio, is new to Palomar. She lives in a van. It doubles as her place of business. She's in the same line of business as Chelo, she's a bañadora, one who washes others. Luba and Chelo cross paths briefly when Luba comes looking for supplies for her business. Chelo lets the other bañadora take what she needs.

I really like this story so far. The story meanders a lot but I'm enjoying the exploratory route it takes. I love all the little visual things that Beto includes, many of which I didn't notice until I went back to reread it before writing this.

I'm not sure this will sate everyone's needs but I'm enjoying the hell out of this story.