Review by Graham Johnstone
Peter Bagge’s Neat Stuff was a 1980s anthology of short, humorous, parodic, satirical, and usually hilarious post-underground comix. Amongst mischievous kids and media personalities, was the (pre-Simpsons) mock soap-opera of dysfunctional family The Bradleys.
The Bradleys are Mom, Pop, adolescent son Buddy, teenaged daughter Babs, and pre-teen son Butch. Bagge wisely opens at a moment of change, with Mom returning to work, so requiring the kids to help around the house. If the trajectory is predictable, Bagge pushes it to extremes that suit his exaggerated cartoon art.
Bagge quickly makes the nuclear family go metaphorically nuclear, so there’s little room to escalate their collective chemistry. ‘Mom Power’ marks a change of focus, offering a nuanced character study of the power behind Pop. Thereafter, Bagge fruitfully develops individual characters, and their pair relationships. An early story offers a snapshot of each and their respective ‘Icons’. Flag-loving Pop is less relatable character than common antagonist, modelling hierarchical power that cascades down the family. Butch is in Pop’s image, while Babs is more concerned with the hierarchy of schoolgirls. Proto-grunge slacker Buddy likes to think he’s above it all, but still enacts ingeniously cruel power-plays on his younger siblings. Buddy and friend goading little Butch to deliberately pee his pants in return for some non-existent militaria is one of many jaw-dropping moments.
Bagge finds ‘neat’ angles to explore characters. He has Babs’ take on the other characters as “…all they need are nice [women] to help them dress better and act more mature”. It’s an entertaining diversion, that nevertheless reveals the teenage Babs’ worldview. ‘Bab’s Bradley’s Secret Diary’, with sarky commentary from Buddy, is both familiar and poignant. ‘Pop Bradley’s Stupid Answers to Snappy Questions’ is a smart single page, repeating a shot of the patriarch glued to his recliner, watching baseball, and offering the same set of rote answers to his family’s respectively philosophical, personal, provocative, and practical questions. Bagge reveals himself both a sharp creative wit, and astute social observer. He has described the series as inspired by his own family, with Buddy his alter ego. He’s further talked of writing from a ten year distance, enabling him to capture youthful perspectives, while conveying insights they don’t yet have.
There was little like The Bradleys in the 1980s, in comics or elsewhere. The title and ‘groovy’ 1960s logo, evoke Stateside sitcom The Brady Bunch, but presumably ironically. Bagge applies the unflinching self-critique of ‘autobiographix’ pioneers, Justin Green and Art Spiegelman. However, The Bradley’s is wrapped in laugh-aloud humour: that points forward towards the cringe comedy of Joe Matt’s Peep Show comics, and later TV sit-coms, including (the other) Peep Show.
Visually, key elements, of character design, expressive figures, and exaggerated action are there from the start. Bagge progressively refined his style, storytelling, and rendering over Neat Stuff’s five years, the effect exaggerated in this collection singling out the Bradley’s strand.
Bagge eventually felt constrained by Neat Stuff’s anthology format, and the frivolous title, however ironically meant, so spun off alter-ego, Buddy into his own series Hate. Bagge said it wasn’t an obvious decision, but some of the Buddy stories here like ‘Back to Nature’ preempt Hate right down to the Libertarian themes. Buddy Does Seattle collects the first arc, then Buddy Does Jersey sees him rejoin the family.
Forty years on, The Bradleys are still inventive, relevant, poignant, shocking, and sufficiently funny that Butch Bradley might not be the only one to pee his pants.
Only otherwise available in The Complete Neat Stuff – this 1990s edition is well worth tracking down.
