It's A Hate Jamboree!!
by Pete Bagge and friends

Tragically, Peter Bagge's hysterical comic book "Hate" ended it's run with issue number thirty last fall. While the title is gone, Mr Bagge is not. And that's a damned good thing.

"Hate" was one of the few comics that would actually try and succeed at being funny while tackling the banality of life --- everything from Buddy managing an inept punk band to moving back to New Jersey was tackled with this all-knowing bleak wit.

For whatever reason Mr Bagge has, he has ended Hate, even as it's growing in popularity. This Jamboree is a collection of miscellaneous strips, featuring the characters of "Hate" as well as various other Bagge strips, along with interviews with the book's co-conspirators and a hysterical semi-autobiography by Peter Bagge that's worth the $4.50 alone. It tells of moving from the Lower East Side (before it was hip) to Hoboken (before it was hip and the rents were low after the Lower East Side became hip and the rents sky-rocketed) to Seattle (after the Hoboken became hip and the rents skyrocketed and before Seattle was hip and the rents skytocketed...he sure knows how to pick towns), the rigors of the life of a cartoonist, working for Robert Crumb, and how showbusiness is a hideous bitch-goddes. (Fantagraphics Books)

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Michael Keegan
5.9.1999