Human Diastrophism

Human Diastrophism by Gilbert Hernández
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Human Diastrophism collects stories from Love & Rockets Bonanza, Love & Rockets 21-26, 41-48, 50, and 10 Years of Love & Rockets.

Here we are, my second foray into Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar tales. The seventeen tales within cover various points in the lives of the people of Palmor, most of them introduced in the first volume.

Palomar, the sleepy Central American town without phone service, is locked in the grip of a serial killer in the titular story and is later ravaged by an earthquake. The rest of the stories are of the human interest or relationship variety. Without giving too much of the plot away, people move forward, questions are answered, and still more questions come up. Unexpected twists abound and no one is left unscathed, except maybe Tipin Tipin.

Gilbert Hernandez' art evolved a bit from the first volume. I see some Archie comics influence, as well as Peanuts, and some Alex Toth. There are also some backgrounds that are pretty spectacular.

There is an even larger cast of characters in this volume than in the first one but thankfully Gilbert included a cast page at the beginning and at the end. I thought maybe the large cast was a weakness in the first book but now I think it gives Gilbert more directions to do in.

Human Diastrophism. Five out of five stars. I'm glad I have so many volumes left.

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