Thirty Years of 'Love and Rockets'

It was so crowded at the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery that when I wanted to take off my coat, I had to duck into the nook where they keep the smutty stuff just to get enough elbow room. The line for signatures coiled around the space for more than two hours, with high school girls comparing their cosplay costumes next to grizzled old men who'd stationed themselves by the keg. I talked to Fantagraphics' associate publisher, Eric Reynolds, born in 1971, who started reading Love and Rockets when he was 15. I met a kid who discovered Love and Rockets only a couple years ago but has read all three decades' worth of comics. And I met a Norwegian fan who first picked up the series while she was still living in Norway, and LA and South America both seemed unprecedentedly exotic.