Buddy Bites the Bullet

Rating:
Summary: Sigh! So Buddy finally "grows up".....
Review: These Buddy stories have been such a big "guilty pleasure" for me for so long now that I'm sorry to see them go. For, as the other reviewers have pointed out, this is set up to be the final, anticlimactic installment where Buddy leaves his third-rate, post-industrial, prolonged adolescence for third-rate, post-industrial, adulthood (or at least the superficial trappings of it).
Somehow, I don't think this will be the end of the Buddy Bradley story. Buddy mirrors too closely the fate of the typical "post industrial", working class kid. This won't be the end of his unhappy decline because things continue to get worse for the working class. Even though Buddy has "settled" for a mediocre existance he will not even be allowed to keep that. I rather expect that in a few years Mr. Bradley's business will fail and he will find himself trying to sell his labor as a middle age wage-slave competing against younger versions of himself for the same crummy jobs. Perhaps Bagge could call that story,_Buddy Bites the Big One_.....

Rating:
Summary: Say Goodbye, Buddy
Review: This collection of "HATE!" stories is billed as the last appearance of Buddy Bradley. I rather think we will see Buddy again someday because Bagge does not end his story as much as suspend it. Buddy finally stumbles into adult responsibility: he has his own fledgling business, Lisa is pregnant, and Buddy is down on his creaking knees proposing marriage. He has smartened up somewhat: however some of his buddies begin to pay some scary consequences for their feckless slackery. Once again I'm impressed by the combination of Bagge's precise, almost novelistic characterizations and his wild, hairy, hilarious cartooning. Stinky's sudden self-destruction is shocking, but if you re-read you will find that P.B. has carefully prepared for it; it's almost an archetypal case of personal decline and fall. He lavishes similar care on new characters like Nicole, the nurse who goes on two disastrous dates with Buddy (he thinks she's uptight, but you can sympathize with her desperate attempts to connect with this misanthrope.) George and Val make a cameo appearance that will blow the minds of long-time fans. And Lisa, Buddy's befuddled soul-mate, resurfaces in a highly altered state (Bagge lets his characters change and grow, just like so called real life.) "HATE!" was one of the funniest, most satisfying comics of the '90's. If you are a fan of Kevin Smith's movies, you should get all of Bagge's books immediately.