The Bradleys Number 6

By Dan Morrill On June 21, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Comic Books

Written by Peter Bagge

Printed by Fantagraphics Books

Buddy the Weasel, learns about shooting guns, selling dope, crazy chicks, and of course, the perils of living with a family at any time. Peter Bagge is hitting on all cylinders when he gets going on the story line, and while some of it might start slow, in the end it all ends up bad for Bradley. This is about the way that this whole comic book is going to go, right into the gutter in three panels or less. The scary part of all this the opening sequence of Bradley and his friend firing a gun at the beach. Seriously, some people should not be allowed to simply purchase a gun and then go shooting it off. So yes, they do start taking potshots at each other but being a comic book, with a baseline of reality that is way off in left field so no one gets hurt. Do not try this at home; someone is seriously going to be hurt on this one.

The next sequence has Bradley trying to hook up some drugs, where he gets a lesson in building your business by hooking your friends on stronger drugs than pot. So for people who think that pot is a gateway drug, what Bradley learns is that is really is more about the money, the stronger the drug, the more you can charge, the easier the addiction, the more you sell. That is when he meets the drug pushers crazy girlfriend, who tries to kill him with a huge jar of M&M’s. Topping off what ends up being a really bad day, is when Bradley goes home and ends up in a fight with his sister where he threatens her with a certain piece of his anatomy, bringing on mom, bringing on the pain.

Escaping he has nowhere else to go so he camps out on the beach thinking that he will finally have a chance to get some quiet time, and you know this is not going to happen. It just ends up being one of the worst days you can imagine, where everything possible goes wrong, and missteps were made. Peter has a way of capturing the insanity of life, and while it might not be everyone’s life that he is capturing, at least it is interesting. It is a good comic book if this is your thing; Peter captures an odd set of life circumstances that for those not living it just seems too brazenly bizarre. Overall worth knowing about this title because it is so underground, and there is not a hero to be found. If anything, this is one of the best anti-hero comic books out there with little if anything redeeming about the characters that inhabit this world.