Collecting the legendary Buddy Bradley stories that defined a generation.
At the end of Buddy Does Seattle, with his rock-impresario career in tatters, his friends dispersed, and his career opportunities at zero, Buddy had decided to return with his tail between his legs (and his neurotic girlfriend Lisa on his hands) to his native New Jersey.
Buddy Does Jersey collects all 15 issues of Hate describing the arc of Buddy's East Coast experience, including his launch as a small businessman (co-owning and running a nostalgia store with the dubious Jay) and his reintegration with his family (his sister now a harassed mom, his brother still pretty much a psycho, and his parents—well, wait and see). Also included in this volume is the shocking final fate of the exuberant Stinky—a story that caused jaws to drop in unison all around the world when it was originally released—and the riotous tale of Lisa's brief conversion to lesbianism and subsequent breakup with Buddy.
Originally released in color, the stories in Buddy Does Jersey will here be presented de-colorized in the pristine black and white of earlier Buddy stories, in order to better show off the crisp beauty of inker Jim Blanchard's linework. (Or as much crisp beauty as you need to delineate a row of partygoers setting fire to their own flatulence!)
Buddy Does Jersey will feature a long introduction by Bagge describing (for the first time) how the stories in this book reflected events in his own life, and a foreword by the inheritor of Bagge's mantle of hilarious grossness, Angry Youth Comix' Johnny Ryan.
Publishers Weekly
The acerbic story of ultimate slacker Buddy Bradley from the pages of Hate concludes in this second compilation volume, originally serialized in color in the 1990s but collected here in black and white. Buddy and girlfriend Lisa leave freewheeling Seattle for Buddy's childhood home in New Jersey, where his father sits in a hospital thinking he has cancer, his mother frets loudly and his friend Jay stalks teenage girls and shoots heroin. Buddy and Jay soon hatch a plan to open a store selling junky collectibles to appeal to aging hipster nostalgia. Buddy's religious mother and Lisa get drunk while bowling, and Lisa spills the fact that she's had five abortions. An old friend starts selling drugs and driving around with an Uzi. The episodic tales veer through a lot of ground-the unexpected death of Buddy's father, Lisa's inexplicable infidelity, a friend's out-of-the-blue suicide-but always with a loud, frenetic, "life sucks, who cares" attitude reflected in the big loping swirls and exaggerated features of Bagge's illustrations. Fans of underground comics' brutal social satire and people with generally bitter dispositions will laugh out loud at virtually every seedy panel; other readers will find it a total bummer, dude. (May)
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