The first story collection in Gilbert Hernandez’s Palomar saga to take place after the events of 2010’s High Soft Lisp is torn from the pages of Love and Rockets: New Stories, Love and Rockets Vol. IV, and Psychodrama Illustrated—and expanded with 14 new pages! In Lovers and Haters, 50-year-old cult movie actress Fritz, in addition to her alcoholism and the ups and downs of her career, must also contend with a controlling lover, Danny; a jealous rival, Mila; a score of younger Fritz imitators, a sex cult; and mad scientists. Also in her orbit is her niece, Killer (sometimes literally, as seen in a Doctor Who-inspired TV show), a teen actress trying to launch a singing career while solving math problems. The specter of Fritz’s mother, Maria — also a cult movie actress — haunts them all with her beauty from beyond the grave.With a sprawling cast, Lovers and Haters is about mothers and daughters, aunts and nieces, complex and often toxic relationships, artists and exploiters, personas and obsessions. It reads like an X-rated The Substance mixed with Mommy Dearest and Performance, with an added dash of giallo.
