|
Post by pentimento on Jan 24, 2024 2:24:51 GMT
Hate, naturally, though I see it as a continuum from Neat Stuff, so all of that work. Of his post-Hate oeuvre (haha) I think Other Lives is extraordinary in that it really leaves an uncanny feeling after I read it, like... this is the world we made and live in? Good God, no! Great character based expression of a really strange concept. Don't care at all for his non-fiction stuff, just more bilge for the kid- and moron-adult-friendly "Wikipedia Comics" pipeline, fuck that noise. Peter Bagge!
|
|
|
Post by bayls171 on Jan 24, 2024 3:29:13 GMT
Top ten greatest comic book writer of all time, in the company of Stanley, Kurtzman, Crumb, Moore, Kirby, Tezuka. The quality and merit of his work has nothing at all to do with the era or location it records, it's just as timeless as anything by Salinger or Whit Stillman or Chuck Dickens or Chas Schulz. He's better than any television writer who ever lived, better than Woody Allen, better than YOU and better than ME. He should be in line for a Kennedy Center Honor, A Macarthur Genius Grant, a Pulitzer, a Guggenheim, a Nobel Prize, and a blue ribbon at the Puyallup Washington State Fair. tbh this is the response I kind of hoped to get when i made the thread. like i said i wasnt alive during Hate's publication and found it really enjoyable. people call it dated and i just don't get it - its certainly *set* in the 90s but i dont think you had to be around then to enjoy it
|
|
|
Post by bayls171 on Jan 24, 2024 3:32:51 GMT
also a thing i just remembered: i was reading those Hate hardcovers from the box set and my mother walked by and stopped and actually said how much she liked the drawing. of the idk 1000 covers of comics she must have walked past me reading or seen around at some point i think its the only one shes ever commented on.
his stuff is genuinely striking
|
|
|
Post by pentimento on Jan 25, 2024 0:11:46 GMT
Also the best editor of Weirdo. Bingo
|
|
|
Post by owaddled on Jan 26, 2024 5:29:48 GMT
How do you Bagge-ers feel about Pete's other 4 letter title series, Yeah!? I'm the biggest Gilbert stan but those books put me to sleep. Should give them another chance.
|
|
|
Post by arecomicsevengood on Jan 26, 2024 12:40:38 GMT
Yeah! isn't very good but I did enjoy Bagge's other short-lived DC series Sweatshop.
|
|
nrh
New Member
Posts: 17
|
Post by nrh on Jan 26, 2024 14:05:38 GMT
I like Yeah!, although it probably benefits from the low expectations of a dollar bin, and certainly reads better in the color single issues than it does in the black and white collection.
Always wondered what the scripts looked like, they have to have been fairly detailed, maybe even with breakdowns or thumbnails. It certainly feels very much like Bagge's rhythm. Xaime inks an issue, which is cool - Xaime inking Gilbert over Bagge script.
It's pretty notable I guess for how sour it is, which puts it in company with Sweatshop and even the Megalomaniacal Spider-Man issue he did around that time. The central conceit - that the band is very popular in space but dismissed at home, and the space currency is useless on earth, so their cult fame doesn't help them escape the all too real financial circumstances of their lives on earth - is pretty inspired but also leads to an endless cycle of disappointment and frustration.
|
|
|
Post by owaddled on Jan 26, 2024 18:14:11 GMT
Ah man didn't know about the Xaime issue. I'll have to track that down. I have a few of the single issues and I like the idea of just finding them in dollar bins here and there. Your description of the concept does make it sound more interesting than it feels to actually read it.
|
|
|
Post by matgreaves on Jan 26, 2024 18:31:10 GMT
Recently read Hey Buddy Volume 1.
I think his art style is great, but the stories were super dated - I don’t know how you could say otherwise.
All the slacker roommate stuff is fun, but any woman character is either referred to as a psychopath, a slut or a dyke, Buddy’s scared of catching AIDS from being near gay people and he starts using the N-word pretty casually.
I get that he’s meant to be unlikable, but it read to me like a cringey 90s movie about guys who can’t get laid.
Feel like Eightball aged way better, overall.
|
|
nrh
New Member
Posts: 17
|
Post by nrh on Jan 26, 2024 23:54:03 GMT
One small thing with Yeah! - Gilbert is pretty great at drawing bands playing. The scenes here aren't anywhere near as good as those in Sloth - my favorite example of a band playing together in a comic, I think - but pretty high up there.
So much of Gilbert's brilliance is that he can seemingly draw anything well that it's all too easy to take him for granted. That said it's probably worth thinking about why Gilbert's collaborative works are always so far from his peak.
|
|
|
Post by pentimento on Jan 27, 2024 0:30:17 GMT
Recently read Hey Buddy Volume 1. I think his art style is great, but the stories were super dated - I don’t know how you could say otherwise. All the slacker roommate stuff is fun, but any woman character is either referred to as a psychopath, a slut or a dyke, Buddy’s scared of catching AIDS from being near gay people and he starts using the N-word pretty casually. I get that he’s meant to be unlikable, but it read to me like a cringey 90s movie about guys who can’t get laid. Feel like Eightball aged way better, overall. Absurd. Those traits or "issues" you mention have nothing to do with being dated, they are characterizations. And Buddy's character type is very universal, and can be traced back through Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Fred Exley, Bartleby, Zola's The Masterpiece, on and on. Those unlikable traits (ooh, he said "n*****"! Let's lynch him!) are merely dressing that indicate a time and place. The guts of the character, and the thrust of the story, are timeless. Also, Bagge is the only decent human I've ever met in comics, and Clowes is a fucking trust fund baby, so fuck him.
|
|
|
Post by bayls171 on Jan 27, 2024 1:57:37 GMT
Recently read Hey Buddy Volume 1. I think his art style is great, but the stories were super dated - I don’t know how you could say otherwise. All the slacker roommate stuff is fun, but any woman character is either referred to as a psychopath, a slut or a dyke, Buddy’s scared of catching AIDS from being near gay people and he starts using the N-word pretty casually. I get that he’s meant to be unlikable, but it read to me like a cringey 90s movie about guys who can’t get laid. Feel like Eightball aged way better, overall. Idk, I guess it depends on what you mean by “dated”. Like I said, Hate is obviously set in the 90s and the characters act as such, but it doesn’t feel like a book with attitudes that wouldn’t translate to current audiences. Yes, there are some people who struggle to understand that not all media is meant to be a morality tale, but there are even TV shows in the mainstream that have nothing but awful characters As a counter example a lot of the early Eightball strips (like in the first 5 or so issues) have a smug attitude and a rage towards culture in them that feels really hard to connect to
|
|
|
Post by matgreaves on Jan 27, 2024 8:58:57 GMT
“Those unlikable traits are merely dressing that indicate a time and place.”
If only there was a snappier way of saying that… Ah yes, dates them!
Bagge wasn’t writing a period piece, he was reflecting the attitudes of his time, which have changed in the last 30 years.
I agree that misogyny, homophobia and racism are timeless and I’m not saying that characters aren’t allowed to be these things or that we need clear moral standpoints from our media, but the way Buddy articulates these “issues” is very much of the 90s, which feel dated in 2024.
Personally, I find Eightball’s rage towards culture (and not proud to say, but sometimes the smug attitude too) very easy to connect to. Mainstream culture is still dogshit, which is why I think it ages better.
|
|
|
Post by fatherspukashells on Jan 27, 2024 18:21:35 GMT
Clowes is a fucking trust fund baby, so fuck him. Would love to see some receipts for this.
|
|
|
Post by pentimento on Jan 28, 2024 0:45:17 GMT
Clowes is a fucking trust fund baby, so fuck him. Would love to see some receipts for this. Find me a single line in any interview he's given the last forty years where he talks about ever having a day job. Chet Brown? Worked in a photo developing place. Hernandez Bros? Janitors. Ware? Drove a bloodmobile. Johnny Ryan? Urology clinic. Clowes? Apparently it's a mystery.
|
|