The story (which spans over eleven years now and hasn't lost its steam) begins in Seattle, where Buddy resides and works at a small bookstore, unhappily as anyone. The story progresses through his adventures of normal life, experiencing things like roommate and girlfriend troubles, dealing with work, and other things pretty much everyone goes through. He eventually moves back home to New Jersey, and the story grows and adapts appropriately, switching from youthly personal problems more to family-based problems.
The major things that make Hate beautiful are the fact that it is an accurate documentation of modern life, its realism when presenting both characters and situations, and the use of crazy art to display a range of emotions like no other artist has previously done. Peter Bagge has brought all these things together to create a world that any person close to Buddy's age can identify with, and he's done it with grace, as is apparent with his obvious personal evolution throughout the playing of Buddy's life.
Buddy Bradley is life. At least in 1990 he was. His life of sitting around, working his low-paying, unsatisfying job, drinking expensive and classy beers (Ballard's Bitter's his favorite) and arguing with his girlfriend is a pretty dead-on depiction of 1990-1998 (when issue 30 came out) urban and suburban life. His life includes experiences that everyone has had to deal with; things like retail jobs, psycho significant others, weird roommates, bum friends, family problems (including sudden death in the family), grunge rock, significant other infidelity, alcoholism, and just so much other shit that I'd be sitting here all day trying to think of more if I really thought you cared. Buddy represents something that is very in need of representation...he is the world of the nineties. He also creates a very nice and clean stereotype of common citizens of Seattle around that time as well...
What makes this comic so alluring? The realism. It's just rare to see true realism and believability in comics. Hell, ever since comics really took off in the 50s and 60s, the majority of comic content was based on the idea of the super hero. Buddy Bradley is still a hero; don't get me wrong; he's just a hero in the sense of his absolute possible existence. Hate has been produced in a manner over the years that is so eloquent and precise that it would not be a surprise if it were the diary of an actual person. However, Hate seems like a funny book from issue #1; it took Peter Bagge a while to really let his characters evolve and become completely human. The book morphs slowly from being a hilarious joke about modern life to being a fearsome reality of modern life with hilarious jokes. Being realistic gives hero comics better imagery; the heroes are drawn with more accurate and bigger anatomy. Hate's realism gives it's characters better lives; the realism of the characters of Hate can reach down into any person and pull out that emotion, that life lesson, that misfortune.
A comic wouldn't be a comic without funny pictures, right? Well, no, not really, but Hate is one of the few comics that can pull off comedy without having stupid art with things like straight lines and eyes. It's true--Buddy Bradley doesn't have eyes most of the time. Peter Bagge's art is useful for more than just grunge rock band posters from the early 90s (and believe me, he did a ton, most of which said "I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR" and then something. Kind of like a Wesley Willis song, but with grunge. The phrase in hate said HEROIN!). He uses ridiculous art to convey the widest array of emotions that I have ever seen. His flaring and flaming characters contort in every way to perfectly portray what they are feeling without saying much.
Hate brings together every aspect of the perfect comic book--exceptional (and realistic) story, intriguing art, and engaging characters--and melds them together, making this wonderful work of art filled with depth and intricacy. It is a viable documentary as well; it will show the space alien inhabitants of future Earth what the world was like in Seattle circa 1990 to New Jersey in the later 90s. Hate is realistic. That makes it a candidate for identification; you can feel what the characters feel. That makes it authentic and attractive. The funny pictures make Hate, well, funny, but also a clear communicative tool for Peter Bagge to very bluntly and effectively express many views and facts of life. That, in effect, also makes Peter Bagge a god, and one of my most admired heroes. Ironic, isn't it?
He has a style that is unique, and uniqueness is a rare trait among modern comics. Independent or not, super hero or not, there are rarely comics that are totally unlike anything else. Hate has pulled it off without a hitch, and it's done it for eleven consecutive years. Hate, even after all these years, is still completely unlike any other comic book in existence. While Bagge's work is associated with the work of his buddies (especially Daniel Clowes, of Eightball fame), it's really nothing like anything else. It's true and genuine beauty.
