Buddy Bradley, Vol. 4: Buddy Go Home!

Buddy Bradley #4

by Peter Bagge

Reprinting Hate #16-20. Buddy Bradley retreats to the suburbs of New Jersey, with his crazy girlfriend Lisa in tow, where he moves back in with his parents. Enjoy the chaos that ensues with the reunited Bradleys!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Humor, Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 1997

About the author

Peter Bagge is an American cartoonist known for his irreverent, kinetic style and his incisive, black-humored portrayals of middle-class American youth. He first gained recognition with Neat Stuff, which introduced characters such as Buddy Bradley, Girly-Girl, and The Bradleys, and followed it with Hate, his best-known work, which ran through the 1990s and later as annuals. Bagge’s comics often exaggerate the frustrations, absurdities, and reduced expectations of ordinary life, combining influences from Warner Brothers cartoons, underground comix, and classic cartoonists like Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, and Robert Crumb. Beyond satire and fiction, Bagge has produced fact-based comics journalism, biographies, and historical comics, contributing to outlets such as suck.com, MAD Magazine, toonlet, Discover, and Reason. His biographical works include Woman Rebel, about Margaret Sanger, Fire!!, on Zora Neale Hurston, and Credo, on Rose Wilder Lane. Bagge has collaborated with major publishers including Fantagraphics, DC Comics, Dark Horse, and Marvel, producing works such as Yeah!, Sweatshop, Apocalypse Nerd, Other Lives, and Reset. He has also worked in animation, creating Flash cartoons and animated commercials, and has been active as a musician in bands such as The Action Suits and Can You Imagine. Bagge’s signature art style is elastic, energetic, and exaggerated, capturing movement and comic expression in a way that amplifies both humor and social commentary. His personal politics are libertarian, frequently reflected in his comics and essays, and he has been a longtime contributor to Reason magazine. Bagge’s work combines biting satire, historical insight, and a relentless visual inventiveness, making him a central figure in American alternative comics for over four decades.

Reviews

[Baal Of]

Reread this on January 18th, 2016, but goodreads doesn't have a way to mark multiple completion times, so I guess this won't count towards my 2016 reading. This volume is not quite as good as the previous volume, but that may just be my being used to the style, so it doesn't seem quite as shocking. It's still got the bizarre, rubbery art style, with the distortion of bodies and faces used to convey extremes of emotion. It's still darkly funny, with a thorough-going disgust aimed at pretty much everybody.

[Isaac]

I should bump this one up a star. The 'Hate' series really doesn't change much after Peter Bagge switches to color and Buddy moves back to New Jersey. It's still as good as always in terms of the characters and the great u-shaped mouth 'scream' panels. I read all of these books in my early 20's, so all of the later stuff seemed really depressing at the time, but I've grown to like it more as time goes on and you realize that you can never really escape your family.

[Bria]

Everything about life is horrible.

[flesher goreman]

Can't stay away from this garbage.

[Rick Ray]

Now in color, Peter Bagge's HATE takes Buddy Bradley out of Seattle and back home to New Jersey where he reconnects with family. Lisa joins him on his exodus back east, and together they navigate the much slower paced life in the suburbs of Jersey. Buddy's creepy pal Jay pitches the idea of starting a business together, while Lisa tries to connect with Buddy's mother and sister. Though Buddy and Lisa have pervasive streaks of immaturity, it's the slight changes to their characters that Bagge introduces in this volume to really show they have gotten a little older. It's pretty representative in Buddy's relationship with Jay, his brother Butch and his sister's monstrous kids, but it's clear that this isn't the same old Buddy from earlier in this run.

Though many might consider HATE was at its best when it was black-and-white and set in Seattle, the shift in aesthetic and setting really kept this book feeling fresh. One can really consider the first half of HATE to be its own series altogether, and this second half serves as a strong albeit different sequel.

Individual reviews of each chapter contained in "Buddy Go Home!":
"Meet the Folks!"
"Let's Get Serious!"
"Brother Butch"
"Partners"
"Uncle Buddy"

[Drew Canole]

Collect Hate 16-20. Bagge is joined by Jum Blanchard on inks and the comic is now in color! Buddy moves to New Jersey and lives with his parents.

Hate 16 Meet the Folks
Lisa meets Buddy's parents for the first time. Buddy sees his neighbourhood "friend" Jimmy Foley again. Buddy' father's health is not great. But in the end the two of them decide to stay in New Jersey.

Hate 17 Let's Get Serious
Buddy hangs out with his old friend Jay - a recovering heroin user and pervert who shares Buddy's interest in old useless collectables. Lisa goes to church with Buddy's mom but butts heads with her over religious stuff.

Hate 18 Brother Butch
Also around the house is Buddy's sister Babs with her two awful kids and his brother Butch. Buddy buys an old monster car, selects a location for his and Jay's store, and Butch tries to help out by breaking into and stealing from a closed up shop.

Hate 19 Partners
Jay and Buddy open their store but things are off to a bad start. Awful customers, and Jay has started doing heroin again.

Hate 20 Uncle Buddy
Buddy has to take Babs two kids for the day (Tyler and Alexis) when their Dad was too lazy to open the door and take them for the day. They trash his store and drive Buddy nuts.

[Jez]

P Bagge takes on suburbia and it's still messed up and glorious.

[Jonathan Briggs]

"Hate" in color??!! "Sellout!" I hear the purists cry. Whatever. The art may have taken on new hues, but the humor is just as black. In Volume IV of Peter Bagge's slacker opus, Buddy Bradley takes a vacation from Seattle, so he can introduce his girlfriend, Lisa, to his hometown hell -- the suburbs of New Jersey: mulleted cokehead neighbors, fart-lighting ceremonies, monster trucks, road rage. Why would anyone want to go back to Seattle? Buddy and Lisa extend the vacation indefinitely and move into his parents' basement (how slacker can you get?!). Only problem is Buddy and his family seriously get on each other's nerves. His passive-aggressive mother has an endless list of chores that need to be done. His father is in the hospital, convinced he's being consumed by a cancer no one can find. His sister is raising monstrous, cross-dressing, coprophiliac children. And his deeply maladjusted younger brother is also moving back home after being kicked out of the Navy for raging alcoholism. Like Buddy, Peter Bagge is returning to familiar ground in this volume. Before Buddy broke out into his own comic, he was part of the ensemble book "The Bradleys," in which Bagge explored the depressing (but hysterical) dynamic among these characters. But one of the great things about dysfunctional families is their near-infinite potential for storytelling.