Peter Bagge

Peter Bagge (pronounced, as in bag; born December 11, 1957) is an American cartoonist whose best-known work includes the comics Neat Stuff and Hate.

His stories often use black humor and exaggerated cartooning to dramatize the reduced expectations of middle-class American youth.

Moving to New York City in the mid-1970s, Bagge attended the School of Visual Arts for three semesters in 1977 before dropping out to work on Punk magazine.

Bagge began his career in New York City in the early 1980s, contributing comics and illustrations to various underground newspapers and pornography magazines.

In 1980–1981, Bagge co-published the all-comics tabloid Comical Funnies with former staffers of Punk magazine (including John Holmstrom).

Bagge sent copies of Comical Funnies to underground comics legend R. Crumb, who published some Bagge strips in the anthology Crumb was editing, Weirdo.

Bagge contributed to many issues of Weirdo from that point forward, mostly illustrating stories written by Dave Carrino.

In 1984, Crumb passed on the editorial reins of Weirdo to Bagge, who edited it for three years (and one guest issue in 1989).

In 1985, Bagge entered into a long professional association with the alternative-comics publisher Fantagraphics, beginning with his first solo series, Neat Stuff.

This omnibus introduced such characters as Girly-Girl, Junior, Studs Kirby, The Bradleys, and Buddy Bradley.

Neat Stuff ran until 1989.

Its sequel series, Hate (1990–1998), is Bagge's best-known.

He won two Harvey Awards in 1991, one for best cartoonist and one for his work on Hate.

In recent decades Bagge has done more fact-based comics, everything from biographies to history to comics journalism.

Publishers of Bagge's articles, illustrations, and comics include suck.com, MAD Magazine, toonlet, Discover, and the Weekly World News, with the comic strip Adventures of Batboy.

He has expressed his libertarian views in features for Reason.

Peter Bagge was born in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in the New York City suburbs.

Bagge's father was in the military and Bagge has talked about how his Catholic household was the scene of "lots of drunken fights about money. We were the weirdo outcast kids of the neighborhood. I couldn't get away fast enough."

Bagge was confirmed as a teenager; his confirmation name is Peter Christian Paul Bagge (with Paul being an homage to Paul McCartney.)

Starting in 1998 (in a piece for Details magazine), and really intensely in the years 2000 to 2002, Bagge did a number of comics journalism stories—on such topics as politics, the Miss America Pageant, bar culture, Christian rock, and the Oscars—mostly for suck.com.

The series ran nine issues (1999 to 2000).

After ending Hate as a regular title, Bagge has produced a series of Hate Annuals between 2000 - 2010.

Bagge created and wrote an all-ages comic series for DC Comics called Yeah!, about an all-girl rock band, drawn by Gilbert Hernandez.

In 2002, Bagge did his version of Spider-Man for Marvel Comics.

He followed this with a Hulk comic, The Incorrigible Hulk, which was completed but never released due to a management change at Marvel Comics at the time.

Sweatshop, published by DC Comics in 2003, was produced, unlike early issues of Hate, with the help of an art team.

The series ran six issues.

From 2005 to 2007, Bagge worked on Apocalypse Nerd, a comic published by Dark Horse Comics about two average, urban males dealing with the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the Pacific Northwest.

Backup stories in Apocalypse Nerd featured historically researched anecdotal tales of America's Founding Fathers.

The final issue of the six-issue series was published in 2007.

A trade paperback collection was released in 2008.

In August 2009, The Incorrigible Hulk was finally released in serialized form for the Marvel Knights imprint's Strange Tales miniseries.

Starting with the February 2009 issue, the popular science and technology magazine Discover has featured a continuing series of History of Science comic strips created by Peter Bagge.

Bagge's comics feature key characters and events from scientific history.

Other Lives is a graphic novel written and drawn by Bagge, and published by DC Comics on their Vertigo imprint in 2010.

The story revolves around four people, whose real lives—along with their online virtual personas—interact in ultimately disastrous ways.

Reset is a four-part, monthly comic-book miniseries written and illustrated by Bagge and published by Dark Horse Comics.

The story revolves around a middle-aged, washed-up comic actor who agrees to take part in the development of a computer application that allows him to relive his life in a virtual sense.

The first issue was released in April 2012.

It was collected into a book that same year.