A review by rebus
The Complete Buddy Bradley Stories from Hate Comics, Vol. 1: Buddy Does Seattle, 1990-1994 by Everett True, Peter Bagge
4.5
Bagge, whose family possesses the weird affectation of not pronouncing his own surname correctly, was one of the few artists any of us were eager to engage as the culture forever slid into irrelevance in the 90s. It's very odd then that his intro to this series--and there is some confusion about the editions and the cover art for each volume listed here is incorrect, as well as several reviewers making errors, such as the fact that the first 15 issues, like ALL Fantagraphics titles, were in black and white and that the company went to color largely on the success of Hate--is a rant about how 80s culture was the stifling nadir of civilization and that it was the 90s when freedom of expression returned and that life became more vibrant and colorful. Huh? I guess it was no surprise to learn in recent years that Bagge's views are mostly consistent with that of the Alt Right (he decries in the intro that his political allies get doxed and fired from jobs and makes the utterly bogus claim that it is anarchists who start violence at demonstrations and rallies, also truly believing that there is no such thing as a hate crime). It's also now very telling to find out that the tale of Buddy Bradley is largely autobiographical, and even more telling how Bagge skews that story and the time period in which it actually occurs in order to skew the narrative about the culture.
I rated this a masterpiece when it was being released because I thought it was a clever satire of the far right wing mentality. The problem is that Bagge's stand in was not the 24 year old Buddy Bradley, Generation X hipster and slacker, living out his existence in the then hip Pacific Northwest paradise of Seattle. The fact is that Bagge turned 35 in 1992, nearly 2 years after his work first gained notice, about a year after Hate was published and began to rapidly gain traction among fans of the underground. Bagge intentionally obfuscates the facts in order to rationalize the far right wing ideology--and a Libertarian is just a far right wing corporate capitalist who doesn't care about your sex or drug habits--and to create a confused mythology about himself. The REAL Buddy Bradley, Bagge himself, would have been 24 years old in 1981 and Bagge's tales are more about the mid 80s, when grunge really began, than about the 90s.
Re-reading it now, it becomes quite obvious that he was never a Gen X slacker, but was a very typical Boomer who believes he's a genius and that the meritocracy finally rewarded him for that after his years of struggle which left him broke and living off of his wife in a state of arrested development as he reached the age of 30 with no success at the height of grunge (around 1987). The 80s culture was truly the vibrant and colorful response to the reactionary politics of the Reagan Era--which Bagge should have loved, but was too bitter about his lack of success to appreciate--and this is evident when one looks at the subtext and psychological underpinnings to the characters.
Buddy and Lisa are both obsessed with old timey and often comedic musicians from the 40s through the 60s, which was not the obsession of a Gen Xer in the 80s who was in to New Wave, synths, and the latest things (like Bret Easton Ellis novels). This obsession was strictly for Boomers, and while among the youngest of his Generation, Bagge's tastes are the most lame, mostly of white musicians, unlike the earlier members of his generation who were more interested in blues and jazz that went back further (and trust me, I know, as my 10 year career managing a great music store coincided almost exactly with the decade that Hate was being published). It was the grunge movement that turned the clock backwards, away from the creative and colorful New Wave and toward the boring, reactionary, flannel and thrift store Maytag or Sears jacket wearing hipsters and bad music of Seattle (Buddy is shown displaying Hate for all the popular music of the 90s, mostly grunge, but the truth is he would have been doing that from 1984-1989 and not in 1991). Of course, we all saw how brilliant minds like Keith Olbermann and Dennis Miller turned into crypto-fascists after finding success.
So, Bagge is really just a snob with bad taste pretending to be an underclass hipster (don't be fooled by the portrayal of Buddy as an ugly dude with bad hair in his eyes, as Bagge and his Alt Right brother both sport very perfect Hitler youth haircuts). He hates women, gays, tattoos, pool halls, and looks down upon the homeless as inferior. Like a typical Boomer, he's rather have found Badfinger and Alice Cooper albums in the used bins than the latest by Gang of Four or the Art of Noise (reminding me of metalhead former WI governor Scott Walker). He lauds the great underground artists of the 60s, but I personally only see Crumb, Shelton and a few others as great, while the 80s produced Dennis Eichorn, Dave Sim, the Hernandez Brothers, Gary Panter, Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, Reed Waller and Jim Woodring. Much of this stuff--with the exception of Sim, who also became right wing--was a bit too left and hewed too close to issues of racism and sex for Bagge to bear, so he slags the 80s out of jealousy (it was the 90s when comix really got bad, DC and Marvel back to pro war propaganda forever, undergrounds virtually gone, and only Alan Moore of any interest, even if he had to go mainstream and make a buck). He celebrates the 90s and slags the 80s because the 90s is when the money began rolling in for him and he no longer had to rely upon his well employed wife.
It's still compelling reading and nearly the work of genius, but let's face it: Bagge has never really worked since. The characters were just that good, with Lisa believing in silly notions like 'normals' being the majority in society because they are on college campuses, or George failing to realize that George Lucas was a hack and the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises almost complete garbage (propaganda at best). Stinky may be the only likeable character, a true free spirit who doesn't give a fuck about anything but getting laid and getting wasted. Val is also seen reading the Face, a magazine that was in its heyday in the 80s, not the 90s, and Buddy is also frequently using the term 'pork' for sex, when that term was in common usage in the 70s and fading by the 80s. Bagge also shows his prudishness and inability to handle deeper psychological issues that the other underground artists of the time were tackling and beginning to tackle, using an almost indecipherably complex style whenever he had to depict scenes of verbal or physical violence, or of sex (it reminded me of the great underground artis and painter Robert Williams, whose work had a similarly difficult style, especially his chrome painted hot rods).
Mid to late 80s grunge somehow hung on far longer than it should have and the hangover lasted until the mid 90s. Bagge, rather than satirizing it, cashed in on it and exposed himself and the culture for what it was, fairly corrupt and very stupid. Make no mistake about it, however, it was ALL cliche after the peak in 1991, the music getting worse and worse and the people worse than that. Bagge was part of it, not apart from it and merely observing. This is actually a tale about the mid and late 80s, not the early 90s, and that should be abundantly clear, just as it is clear that the vast majority of Alt Right movements began in the Pacific Northwest (though it was clearly Bagge's family that influenced him in this direction).
I rated this a masterpiece when it was being released because I thought it was a clever satire of the far right wing mentality. The problem is that Bagge's stand in was not the 24 year old Buddy Bradley, Generation X hipster and slacker, living out his existence in the then hip Pacific Northwest paradise of Seattle. The fact is that Bagge turned 35 in 1992, nearly 2 years after his work first gained notice, about a year after Hate was published and began to rapidly gain traction among fans of the underground. Bagge intentionally obfuscates the facts in order to rationalize the far right wing ideology--and a Libertarian is just a far right wing corporate capitalist who doesn't care about your sex or drug habits--and to create a confused mythology about himself. The REAL Buddy Bradley, Bagge himself, would have been 24 years old in 1981 and Bagge's tales are more about the mid 80s, when grunge really began, than about the 90s.
Re-reading it now, it becomes quite obvious that he was never a Gen X slacker, but was a very typical Boomer who believes he's a genius and that the meritocracy finally rewarded him for that after his years of struggle which left him broke and living off of his wife in a state of arrested development as he reached the age of 30 with no success at the height of grunge (around 1987). The 80s culture was truly the vibrant and colorful response to the reactionary politics of the Reagan Era--which Bagge should have loved, but was too bitter about his lack of success to appreciate--and this is evident when one looks at the subtext and psychological underpinnings to the characters.
Buddy and Lisa are both obsessed with old timey and often comedic musicians from the 40s through the 60s, which was not the obsession of a Gen Xer in the 80s who was in to New Wave, synths, and the latest things (like Bret Easton Ellis novels). This obsession was strictly for Boomers, and while among the youngest of his Generation, Bagge's tastes are the most lame, mostly of white musicians, unlike the earlier members of his generation who were more interested in blues and jazz that went back further (and trust me, I know, as my 10 year career managing a great music store coincided almost exactly with the decade that Hate was being published). It was the grunge movement that turned the clock backwards, away from the creative and colorful New Wave and toward the boring, reactionary, flannel and thrift store Maytag or Sears jacket wearing hipsters and bad music of Seattle (Buddy is shown displaying Hate for all the popular music of the 90s, mostly grunge, but the truth is he would have been doing that from 1984-1989 and not in 1991). Of course, we all saw how brilliant minds like Keith Olbermann and Dennis Miller turned into crypto-fascists after finding success.
So, Bagge is really just a snob with bad taste pretending to be an underclass hipster (don't be fooled by the portrayal of Buddy as an ugly dude with bad hair in his eyes, as Bagge and his Alt Right brother both sport very perfect Hitler youth haircuts). He hates women, gays, tattoos, pool halls, and looks down upon the homeless as inferior. Like a typical Boomer, he's rather have found Badfinger and Alice Cooper albums in the used bins than the latest by Gang of Four or the Art of Noise (reminding me of metalhead former WI governor Scott Walker). He lauds the great underground artists of the 60s, but I personally only see Crumb, Shelton and a few others as great, while the 80s produced Dennis Eichorn, Dave Sim, the Hernandez Brothers, Gary Panter, Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, Reed Waller and Jim Woodring. Much of this stuff--with the exception of Sim, who also became right wing--was a bit too left and hewed too close to issues of racism and sex for Bagge to bear, so he slags the 80s out of jealousy (it was the 90s when comix really got bad, DC and Marvel back to pro war propaganda forever, undergrounds virtually gone, and only Alan Moore of any interest, even if he had to go mainstream and make a buck). He celebrates the 90s and slags the 80s because the 90s is when the money began rolling in for him and he no longer had to rely upon his well employed wife.
It's still compelling reading and nearly the work of genius, but let's face it: Bagge has never really worked since. The characters were just that good, with Lisa believing in silly notions like 'normals' being the majority in society because they are on college campuses, or George failing to realize that George Lucas was a hack and the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises almost complete garbage (propaganda at best). Stinky may be the only likeable character, a true free spirit who doesn't give a fuck about anything but getting laid and getting wasted. Val is also seen reading the Face, a magazine that was in its heyday in the 80s, not the 90s, and Buddy is also frequently using the term 'pork' for sex, when that term was in common usage in the 70s and fading by the 80s. Bagge also shows his prudishness and inability to handle deeper psychological issues that the other underground artists of the time were tackling and beginning to tackle, using an almost indecipherably complex style whenever he had to depict scenes of verbal or physical violence, or of sex (it reminded me of the great underground artis and painter Robert Williams, whose work had a similarly difficult style, especially his chrome painted hot rods).
Mid to late 80s grunge somehow hung on far longer than it should have and the hangover lasted until the mid 90s. Bagge, rather than satirizing it, cashed in on it and exposed himself and the culture for what it was, fairly corrupt and very stupid. Make no mistake about it, however, it was ALL cliche after the peak in 1991, the music getting worse and worse and the people worse than that. Bagge was part of it, not apart from it and merely observing. This is actually a tale about the mid and late 80s, not the early 90s, and that should be abundantly clear, just as it is clear that the vast majority of Alt Right movements began in the Pacific Northwest (though it was clearly Bagge's family that influenced him in this direction).