I’ve been a fan of comics since I was a kid, and my passion for the form grew during my employment at Heroes World distribution in the ’80s. While my co-workers at the warehouse were pouring over (and speculating on) Marvel and D.C. superhero books, I was reading Love and Rockets, Yummy Fur, Lloyd Llewllyn, Good Girls, and Raw, part of a wave of underground comics that were bubbling under alongside the punk music scene of that era.
Among my favorite titles was Neat Stuff, Peter Bagge’s first solo comic, published from 1985 to 1989. Each issue featured a variety of short, slap-sticky stories — think Harvey comics from the ’60s, only with more sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. At the heart of Neat Stuff is a lovable dysfunctional family named The Bradleys.
The parallels between my own suburban New Jersey family and the Bradleys still surprise me today — All-American conservative dad, check; devout Catholic mom, check; Duran Duran loving younger sister; check, hyperactive much-younger brother, check; last name and children’s first names all starting with the letter B, check, check, check, and check. As for the eldest son, Buddy, he was an ultra-opinionated, surly teenaged music snob. Absolutely nothing like me!
By 1990 Buddy had moved to Seattle and had a comic of his own called Hate. Gone are the short vignettes from the earlier work, replaced by a comic soap opera featuring a cast of 20-somethings making hysterically bad choices. Bagge jokingly refers to this as his “Grunge Archie” period, but his writing had improved ten-fold from his Neat Stuff days. An uncanny grasp of human nature and a perfect ear for dialogue place Bagge alongside Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Alison Bechdel, and the Hernandez Brothers as one of the finest storytellers from the independent comics scene of the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1991 I followed my comic doppelgänger West, landing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I proceeded to make hysterically bad choices of my own. However, in 1994 I was convinced that mine and Buddy’s paths had finally diverged when I opened my own comic, book, zine, and video rental store. Surely this was something my slacker-twin could not manage? Wrong! Buddy opened his own shop in 1995, in Hate #19.
Fast forward to Hate Revisited! which finds Buddy in 2023, married and living in Tacoma. The book’s timeline jumps back and forth between his present middle-aged life and his ’90s young adulthood, filling in some gaps and dredging up skeletons from his past, including one actual skeleton. As we all know, the “flashback” is a tricky conceit in fiction and when handled poorly it’s a superfluous mess. Happily, in Bagge’s capable hands, the 90s episodes feel unforced, adding just enough detail without betraying the original storyline. The Stretchpants comics that round out this collection are a throwback to the goofy scatological short pieces from Neat Stuff.
And here, finally, is where Buddy and I part ways. I am living in the Pacific Northwest, but not in Tacoma and not married with children. However, it would surprise me not at all to find Buddy showing up at Island Books in a future comic.
If you are new to Bagge’s comics, I would recommend starting with The Complete Hate Vol. 1 (which collects Hate issues 1 through 15) and follow that up with Vol. 2 when it is released in December. However, I do feel that Hate Revisited! stands up well on its own and I would love to hear impressions from customers who read it first.
Now would also be a good time to mention that these are adult comics, recommended for mature audiences, like you!
— Brad, Island Books, Mercer Island, WA
