NEAT STUFF #9
April, 1988
The forerunner of the more popular HATE, NEAT STUFF was cartoonist Peter Bagge’s magazine-sized anthology series, in which he could and would try just about anything. One of the last of the underground cartoonists, Bagge brought a keen wit and a sharp anti-establishment perspective to his NEAT STUFF work, eventually settling in on a number of recurring characters and strips: STUDS KIRBY, GIRLY-GIRL, CHET & BUNNY LEEWAY, JUNIOR, and THE BRADLEYS.
THE BRADLEYS was a harsher, more pointed, more underground precursor to the Simpsons, a comedy strip about a trashy suburban middle-class family. Issue #9, my first, featured Bagge’s first full-length BRADLEYS tale, a 30-page saga that pushed slacker-before-the-term-was-invented Buddy Bradley to the fore. Buddy would eventually go on to polish his act and become the lead character in HATE.
