Hate Annual #6 - Mobile Edition

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Hate Annual #6
By Leroy Douresseaux
August 16, 2006 - 14:17

Fantagraphics Books
Writer(s): Peter Bagge
Penciller(s): Peter Bagge
Cover Artist(s): Peter Bagge

Since he ended his venerable 90’s alt-comix series, Hate, in the late 1990’s, Peter Bagge provides hardcore Hate-lovers with an annual fix, the HATE ANNUAL. He’s skipped a year, but who’s complaining, especially when one considers the treat Bagge has in store for Hate Annual #6. I look forward to an annual visit with Bagge’s signature character, Buddy Bradley, and this year’s appointment brings up a skeleton in the cupboard from Buddy’s not-distant-enough past.

Way back in Hate #27 (publication date: May 1997), Buddy’s palooka brother, Butch, and Buddy’s longtime pal, Leonard Brown, best known to the world as “Stinky,” were fooling around with a pistol. Stinky stupidly put the pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. There was a live round… Somewhere, in the Jersey woods, Stinky’s friends buried him in an earthen grave.

Cut to the present: Trying to impress a barfly he’s attempting to pick up, the intoxicated Butch starts spilling his guts about Stinky. Before long, the dark secret of Stinky’s “disappearance” is a rattlesnake in Buddy Bradley’s hands. How is going to keep this secret buried?

The first page or so of “Skeletons in the Closet” seem… non-Bagge, but as soon as Buddy has to start scheming, the old energy is back. What else can I say? I don’t think Hate fans will disappointed, other than the fact this is only 10-pages long. The rest of the issue is pretty mild, except for this issue’s non-comics entry. “Are You a Cunt” is a personality test that recalls Bagge at his nastiest, most devious, and subversive best. The two-pager, “Game Day with the Quarterback’s Wife,” is dead on about sport fans. Those who didn’t buy Matrix Comics Vol. 2 can finally see Bagge’s three-page sketch that sends up The Matrix Reloaded.

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