REVIEW BY CHRIS MAUTNER:
(from The 100 Best Comics of the Century! in The Comics Journal #210, 1999)
The success of Peter Bagge's Buddy Bradley stories - starting off with the Bradley Family stories in Neat Stuff and continuing through Hate - is due in large part to the strength and familiarity of his characters. Despite (or perhaps because of) Bagge's our-exaggerated art style, Buddy Bradley and his family, friends, hangers-on and oddities provide an almost painful reflection of people we know and se in our everyday lives; sometimes even ourselves. To read Hate and Neat Stuff is to stare into a hilarious distorted portrait of modern America.
Such familiarity is important to comedy, especially comedy that depends upon a large and continuing group of characters. Bagge's work with the Bradleys differs from his other work (such as Martini Baton) and the work of other "gag" cartoonists in that the laughs are not built around punch lines but around the characters, their reactions to their surroundings and the company they're forced to keep. Bagge's genius lies in the fact that readers identify with characters that often behave like greedy, lustful, immoral, indecent slobs. Bagge is not only one of the most distinctive cartoonists to come down the pike, he's hands-down one the comic industries best writers.
With the Buddy Bradley stories, Bagge created some of the most fully realised, three dimensional characters in comics. The fact that they often behave like jerks or worse only makes them all the more funny and recognisable. What does that say about us?
REVIEW BY ROBERT CRUMB:
I enjoy his work immensely. It cracks me up. I think he's an up-and-coming great cartoonist of our time... I can count on one hand the number of comic artists of his generation whose work is as strong... maybe on two or three fingers... It's a laff riot, what can I tell ya?
READ THIS COMIC:
Peter Bagge comics (including The Complete Neat Stuff and The Complete Hate collections) are available from Fantagraphics Books or your local comics store.
FURTHER READING:
Peter Bagge on Twitter
Peter Bagge at Reason.com
Peter Bagge: Conversations
Cartoonist Kayfabe Review: Hate #1
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