Birdland (Eros Graphic Album Series) Paperback

i am amazed at how many times i've talked with hernandez brothers fans who've never heard of this book. despite just how 'hardcore' it is (and it is Very hardcore in terms of blurring the line between "erotica" and "porn") somehow it never feels crude but rather a Celebration of all things lusty and sexual. of course the above is only true because of the Craft that gilbert hernandez puts into his characters, stories, and imagery. as further testament of the power of this book, i've had it "borrowed" and never returned at least three times over (as with cd's this is The highest compliment to the artist). buy this book!

sexy, pornographic and out of control. this is a must have for anyone that is a fan of the Hernandez brothers.

Love los bros Hernandez but I found the illustrations more off-putting than sexy. Guess I'll stick to Love & Rockets....

Birdland is an unusual work in Gilbert Hernandez's canon; the exception, not the rule. It may be worth noting that it was created as a means of stress relief during the ongoing serialization of both Poison River and Love and Rockets X, two outstanding yet highly complex works that eventually lead the artist to swear off longform storytelling, at least for a while.Here, Beto lets himself go a little nuts with Fritz and Petra, characters he'd soon introduce into L&R X. These are not quite the Fritz and Petra we'll come to know in Luba Conquers the World and beyond, but more like ‘proto’ versions: Fritz is a psychotherapist specializing in regressive hypnotherapy—taking full sexual advantage of her patients during this process!—and Petra is her secretary. Fritz's husband Mark Herrera and his brother Simon (who?) are also fairly generic, nothing like what Mark would become much later as the distinctive narrator of High Soft Lisp. They're joined by Bang and Inez from the very first issues of L&R, now recast as strippers (plus: La Valda!). Bang's abduction by aliens as a child makes her a centerpiece of the story, framing or complementing the relationship drama between Mark and Fritz.All I can say is, if this helped us get to The Luba Trilogy, it was worth it! Otherwise, I don't think it's a very good read—unique, sure, but equally as off-putting and not at the level of Beto's usual work. This is true hardcore pornography: The (explosive) sex scenes drive the story, not vice versa. Given that comics are a narrative form, these two divergent aims—to tell a story vs. to get us excited—wind up at odds with each other, and the book becomes, at best, a zen experience of transcendental eroticism (whatever that might mean to you), elevating our bodies‘ ‘orgone energies’ for mysterious, alien purposes. Put it this way: If we read about people fighting or killing each other, we don't get inspired to go out and fight or kill, but reading sexual material seems to elicit a different response. But the narrative form pushes us to continue reading, to repeatedly expose ourselves to panel after panel of spurting fluids and juddering organs, eventually bringing us into a tantric state of higher consciousness. ;) I am literally just making all this up, because there is no correct way to process a work like this.Seriously, I like to think there's a reason I'm supposed to be reading this book—that Beto knows what he's doing here; he's proven himself a brilliant creator in so many other instances—but that's just a pleasant thought. More often than not, I just found myself bored.This project was initially published as a three-issue comic series, with a fourth issue added much later. Pages were then added to the story at various junctures, both when the individual comics were reprinted and when the material was gathered into book form. It's kind of astonishing how many editions there are of this work. Artistically, the bulk of it looks straight out of the pages of L&R X (ca. 1990-91), but the last issue (ca. 1994) sees a pleasant streamlining in the artistic style. Unfortunately, none of the original chapter breaks are honored here, which diminishes the power of the narrative somewhat, and the extra pages tend to bloat the original's tighter pacing. (Birdland is far from Beto's longest work, but it can easily feel that way in this fully engorged, turgid state.) If you find yourself lost near the end, take a close look at the bottom panel on the third-to-last page; it's kind of a Rosetta Stone to the book's final issue. The key is to recognize the familiar faces, now in different gender forms.Personally, I find Gilbert's mainstream work to be full of erotic moments without having to be so explicit. But it's quite possible this was a necessary step to get to that work. Anyone interested in this might be encouraged to check out Garden of the Flesh and Blubber (still available direct from Fantagraphics!) as these pursue similar themes and are more readily available and vital to the artist's current discography.