A few years back I went into a comic book store and was talking about how I couldn't relate to modern super hero comics and how I wanted something more.  I was suggested Daniel Clowes' Ghost World (though I had already seen the film) and Los Hermanos Hernandez Love and Rockets.  I was also handed a copy of Peter Bagge's Buddy Does Seattle (a Hate Comics compilation).  I read Buddy Does Seattle first and couldn't tear myself away.  Bagge's style of drawing and his clever writing kept me hooked.  I fell in love with the characters and the story line.  I related to much of what Buddy was saying about Seattle during the grunge scene while I was surrounded by people trying to prove themselves cultured in Northampton, Ma.  I had a particular loathing for my five college surrounding, the way everyone thought alike and had to study the same exact theoretical bullshit, and somehow I managed to be a part of it anyways.  All of a sudden I was reading a comic that I could relate to and I remember clearly wishing it wouldn't end.  It could have been the never ending story and I'd be reading it right now.  (Well, I couldn't any way because I let my friend borrow it to get him into it, and the previous copy I had I gave to my friend Louie who in turn bought me a Buddy Bradley bobble head doll from Camden Town in return. I love that thing.)

We were very lucky to have the chance to talk to the man who got me into comic books on our new installment of Wrap It Up Podcast.  Peter Bagge is a cartoonist who drew and wrote Hate Comics, Neat Stuff, Apocalypse Nerd, and more recently he wrote a Spiderman book for Marvel Comics (around the same time the movie Spiderman3 came out).  He's cool as hell and the podcast turned out very interesting.

In this special podcast we discuss Hate Comics, super hero comics, Flight of the Conchords, Subpop Records, Seattle, Marvel Comics w/Stan Lee, Robert Crumb, Daniel Clowes, and his recent work on the Hulk and Spiderman as well as a D.C. Comics book coming out.  We also talked about his collaborations with Crumb, Alan Moore (The Watchmen), and others.  There's a bunch more discussed in there and in the recent flurry of comic book related movies out there he's a dude worth listening to.  

Check him out here at his official website, an don't forget to read his comics here either.  And in the future folks, tell us who you'd like to hear an interview with and I'll get them.  It's like that kid.  I run things around here.

Wrap It Up - Episode 4