Birdland (Eros Graphic Albums #1)

Baba

Rating: really liked it
Gilbert takes Luba's sisters to the adult imprint of Fantagraphics, so as well as his trademark magical realism, we also get graphic sex, lots of it. and still this is a good piece of work. 7 out of 12. And no, I couldn't think of a GIF or an image I could use :)
2016 read

Maya

Rating: really liked it
Couldn't get my hands on Love & Rockets, so since this had "bird" in the title, I read this.

I think the gender-swapping is the best thing about this comic. I found Hernandez's characters hard to distinguish between. The excess cum and disproportionate breasts were off-putting, and the dialogue was fairly terrible. But otherwise it was what you'd expect. He's a talented artist and the character Bang-Bang is cool. Not as interested in Love & Rockets now, but I'd still read it if I came across it.

Richard

Rating: really liked it
I'm a huge fan of Gilbert Hernandez, and I'm certainly not a prude... but this is an appalling misfire.

Birdland is a world of nonstop erotic excess, in which nothing is taboo, including incest and a really suprising amount of rape. Actions have no consequences in this fantasy land, and although I understand the intent of celebrating libido without guilt or realistic complications, this is a mess, neither erotic nor liberating.

The fact that Hernandez throws his established characters into the soup makes it seem even less appealing. I understand that they are not real people and that Hernandez has always enjoyed mixing the surreal with the more mundane, but... yuck.

I'm glad this wasn't my first exposure to his work, or it would have been my last, and I would have missed a lot of genius. Sadly, this one is not recommended at all.

Steven

Rating: really liked it
Perhaps the sexiest, orgiastic and orgasmic work of art I've ever read or seen ... with enough love, science fiction, and evolutionary and androgynous philosophy thrown in ... not to be just hardcore porn.

Norman

Rating: really liked it
Is this porn?? If not, this is the single most XXX rated thing one can perhaps “read,” and the amount of sex depicted makes it a very private read...

I wanted to get more meaning out of it, but instead I was questioning things such as why “choad” is a sexy word or what’s up with all the alliteration.

Brian Stillman

Rating: really liked it
My, but that's a lot of cum.

Ushnav Shroff

Rating: really liked it
This graphic novel was a semen-soaked riot of adventures that was extremely hard and dull to follow at times - but that could have been due to all the blood exiting my brain, for Gilbert Hernandez's Birdland is nothing short of crude pornography instilled with a sense of weak narrative.

Malum

Rating: really liked it
Standard smut comic made slightly more interesting by the inclusion of aliens and hypnosis.

StrictlySequential

Rating: really liked it
*Fourth edition January 1996*

Beto quiera llamar y dibujar con el peno de un novio pero no tiene buenas ideas. Menos las tietas mas grandes, el arte es bien y tres o quatro personas son interesante pero todos otros cosas son estupido o feo. El marque de tres estrellas es simpatico.

Dominick

Rating: really liked it
This book is beautifully rendered and features some spectacularly explicit and tawdry sex (not that that's a bad thing). It even makes a gesture or two towards trying to add some sort of actual psychological depth to the cum-drenched proceedings, though mostly it opts for a comic/kitsch feel, with the humour at about a borscht-belt level. There is a plot, sort of, about aliens who are curious about the human sex drive, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense except as an excuse for the fucking and the polymorphously perverse orgy at the end (before the rather redundant post-script story). If you like well-rendered if senseless porn and have a high tolerance for cum shots, this is your book. Otherwise, be warned.

captain america

Rating: really liked it
graphic sex with little in the way of storyline that couldn't have been said in 4 or 5 pages...but this IS the "Eros" imprint of Fantagraphics after all so sex is the raison d'etre.

more disturbing than everything and everyone covered in come is gilbert adding more and more improbable and superfluous layers (both before and after birdland was published) to long-standing characters. for example, although fritz and petra are in the love & rockets/palomar storyline, the birdland story arc is far enough removed that they may as well be different characters. all the extra baggage cheapens the accomplished palomar stories.

Marissa

Rating: really liked it
Very explicit, but oftentimes beautifully so, Birdland is a beautifully rendered erotic graphic novel. Hernández's artwork is as amazing as ever, as is his story lines. Very unconventional, but if you are a lover of his work, and are an adult, I would completely recommend Birdland.

Laura

Rating: really liked it
I need to locate where my comics are - garage in a nice plastic bin I think

Meem

Rating: really liked it
Fail.

Rolando

Rating: really liked it
I love this book way more than is humanly excusable.