Comic book artist offers winter class on graphic novels

Students looking for something new this winter should consider squeezing a new creative writing course into their schedule.


Alternative cartoonist Peter Bagge will be teaching a course about how to write graphic novels starting next quarter.


Bagge, who has worked for several publications, from "Mad Magazine" to "Hustler," discovered his true calling after seeing a Robert Crumb comic book. Crumb founded the underground "comix" movement and is renowned for his subversive critiques of mainstream American culture.

"He still is my favorite cartoonist," Bagge said.

Upon seeing Crumb's work, Bagge dropped out of art school and started focusing solely on comics.

The road to making money as a comic artist didn't come easy for Bagge.


"[I worked] day jobs. About 16 different day jobs," Bagge said. "One lasted for about half an hour."


With the financial support and encouragement of his wife, Bagge eventually quit his job.

In 1985, Bagge had his first comic book published by Fantagraphics Books in Seattle. His book, then called "Neat Stuff," didn't sell many copies until 1990, when Bagge changed its title to "Hate" and centered the story on a character named Buddy Bradley.


"Artistically, my dream came true. I had my own comic book." Bagge said. "It just clicked somehow, and suddenly we were selling great, and my wife could afford to quit her job, finally."


Bagge's upcoming class at Seattle U is but one of several things on the cartoonist's plate this year.

Bagge just finished a graphic novel for Vertigo, a division of D.C. Comics, and he has a project in mind for Reason Magazine.


But he's also starting something different.

Bagge plans to author a series of biographies of independent and influential women from the early 20th century.


"What's remarkable about [these women] is that they pre-date the 1960s women's movement," Bagge said. "But they still lived their lives as if there already was women's liberation."

The artist plans to include biographies of Zora Neale Hurston, Margaret Sanger, Rose Wilder Lane, Laura Ingalls, Ayn Rand, Betty MacDonald and Isabel Paterson.


"I'm trying to work out exactly how to format it, and even who will publish it," Bagge said. "It just seems like to me, they'd make great comics."


But as far as Bagge's upcoming class, he wants his students to start off slowly.


"It'll mostly be about writing." Bagge said. "We'll talk about the nuts and bolts of writing a graphic novel, but what I also plan on doing is roughly covering the history of comics."

While Bagge said he looks forward to teaching the course, he also has a few looming anxieties.


"We don't want to make people draw who don't know how to draw," Bagge said. "[And] I've never taught a whole college course before. I hope it works out, because my eyesight is starting to fail."

News editor Emily Holt can be reached at news@su-spectator.com.