Drawn And Quartered

Peter Bagge is in Seattle, which is enjoying a burst of unexpectedly pleasant weather. “It's not raining, so that makes it a good day here,” he says with a laugh. It means that he's definitely looking forward to his trip to Sydney, though – Australia is known for markedly better weather than the ever-drizzly Seattle.

Bagge is a prominent cartoonist with a career spanning over three decades, but like so many cartoonists, he's best known for one particular project that struck a chord around the world: Hate, featuring the beloved, universally understood lead character Buddy Bradley. First published by Fantagraphics in 1990, Hate ran for 30 issues and later continued in the form of the sort-of-yearly Hate Annual - “It was supposed to be once a year, but that didn't always quite work out,” explains Bagge.

Unlike some cartoon characters that have remained the same age for the entirety of their runs, Buddy Bradley has aged in real time, as has his creator. “[Buddy Bradley] was always roughly ten years younger than me and there would be certain parallels between my life and his, although his life took very different twists and turns than mine did,” explains Bagge.

What Bagge didn't like, though, was the implication that Buddy Bradley was a semi-autobiographical creation. He resisted the comparison for some time: “I used to be somewhat in denial about how similar I was to the character. I thought I related to him on some level, but I used to tell myself that we were very different people.” Still, he eventually came to realise just how closely he and Buddy Bradley were aligned – through the magic of journalism, no less. “A while ago, a music magazine sent me a questionnaire,” says Bagge. “They wanted me to answer, like, ten questions, but they said, 'Don't answer it as you. Answer it as Buddy Bradley. Answer the questions as he would answer them.' But then once I'd finished, I re-read the questions and realised I would have answered all the questions the same way!”

While Bagge is looking forward to clocking some face time with his Australian fanbase, he says that Spain is where his most ardent fans can be found. “My work is more popular there than anywhere, including the United States,” he says, recalling signings with Spanish fans dressed up as Buddy Bradley. Nobody foresaw Hate's popularity in Spain – Fantagraphics originally thought the cartoon would be better received in Scandinavia – but Bagge mentions the Spanish translation quickly soared to prominence, thanks in large part to the diligence of the translator, who translated not only the text, but the obscure cultural references.

Bagge has plenty to come on the horizon – as well as cartooning, he has been writing features for libertarian publication Reason and has several books and anthologies due out in 2013, even if he can't reveal all the details yet. He remains proud, however, of Buddy Bradley – a character who he believes can be translated into every language. “The type of person that Buddy Bradley is, I think it really is universal,” says Bagge. “In his twenties, disaffected, attitude problem – I really do think that's a universal character.” No argument here.