27/06/2025
Hah!
In the early 90s I would often accompany Peter Bagge as his unwitting accomplice on Stinky Dates, where I played the role of Leonard the Love God with “wnners” of his Win a Date with Stinky contest. Bagge would later illustrate highly fictionalized accounts of these encounters. This episode, from Hate #10, involves young Chicago cartoonist Jessica Abel when she worked as a bartender at the Torchlight cocktail lounge, located across the street from Daniel Clowes’ then-studio. She generously provided us complimentary refreshments. As the night progressed, Abel announced she was ending her shift early to go see Babes in Toyland, a band I knew little about other than their imminent threat to our free drinks. Thus my disparaging comments. Unlike this comix chronicle, she eventually went to the show, leaving my sorry ass on the barstool. Sigh…
When the issue came out a few weeks later, Fallout Records in Seattle hosted a signing for the occasion; and who walks in? Yep. Babes in Toyland, each clutching the newly minted Hate. Bagge immediately threw me under the bus: “That’s Stinky right there,” pointing me out as the culprit. All was forgiven after I explained the dire circumstances. They said they were just thrilled to be immortalized in Hate! Good times.
Meet Peter Bagge at Hot Off the Press Book Fair on Saturday July 12.
