Apocalypse Nerd [Paperback]

Peter Bagge (Author, Artist)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2008

Software Engineer Perry and his friend Gordo are two average suburban guys who just wanted to go camping in the North Cascade Mountains near Seattle - but Kim Jung II had other plans. Now Seattle is a smoldering nuclear wasteland and Perry and Gordo are about to be put to the test in ways they have never imagined!

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

While geekish software engineer Perry and his macho pal Gordo relax at a Pacific Northwest cabin, Kim Jung Il nukes Seattle, and the boys’ vacation turns into a desperate struggle for survival. As civilization crumbles, the pair takes harsh and gruesome measures to defend themselves and, later, simply to secure food. Since the tale is told by the satiric Bagge, best known for his chronicles of ur-slacker Buddy Baxter in Hate comics, the depiction of the post-apocalypse is incongruously funny. Early on, when Perry and Gordo join a commune run by a tech tycoon and other computer types, and later, when they come across an enclave of lesbian separatists, humor really comes to the fore. But as their situation becomes more dire, the juxtaposition of Bagge’s madcap bigfoot style and chillingly grisly violence grows more and more jarring. As wacky as Bagge’s drawings are, they don’t allay the brutal grimness of a harrowing tale that works as wry commentary on masculinity, pointed riposte to post-9/11 mentality, and a rousing though farcical survival epic. --Gordon Flagg

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593079028
• ISBN-13: 978-1593079024
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #764,129 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars If the fallout doesn't kill you, Perry will, April 22, 2008

By 

Bryan C. Crouch - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apocalypse Nerd (Paperback)

People who read Apocalypse Nerd are likely familiar with Peter Bagge's older work, and may find this book is not what they were expecting.

Apocalypse Nerd is probably the darkest and most violent comic Peter Bagge has ever written. The two main characters will prove instantly recognizable to Bagge fans, being the interchangeable males who appear in nearly all of his comics in some guise or another. But the classic Bagge wiseass humor fades quickly, and we are left with...death. Lots of it. After the North Korean nuke of Seattle which presumably leaves a couple million people dead, the survivors head for the surrounding Cascade mountains, and everything devolves into some kind of survivalist nightmare: people kill and steal with no visible remorse or second thoughts. This applies in particular to the "hero", Perry (who looks an awful lot like Bagge himself), who, after an intial phase as a clueless girly-man, essentially goes on a killing spree in the name of survival. Perry and his buddy Gordo chuck the body of man they've just killed over a cliff. An entire family, including an infant, is killed. A truck carrying relief supplies is attacked, and its drivers shot. Bagge's signature cartoony art softens the blow of this chaotic world; if this had been drawn by Steve Dillon, this comic would be pretty disturbing.

Finally, it is my understanding that the single-issue series had supplemental material, comics about America's founding fathers, which is not included in this trade.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really disturbing stuff, December 20, 2010

By 

Ricky Pooski "cool" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Apocalypse Nerd (Paperback)

Perry and Gordo are the kind of losers that Peter Bagge loves to write about and while this is an improvement over Other Lives HC which saw Bagge coasting on his old characters, it does feel like he's cruising. Only in this case he's free from all restraints since Seattle gets nuked in the first chapter. In the absence of a city or a civilization, Bagge is free to work with losers in a world without rules. And in a world without rules, they kill a lot of people. Gordo disappears somewhere in the middle and Perry goes off with a woman that he meets at a lesbian collective who is equally as homicidal. At one point she kills someone he knows and he asks her why she did that and she replies that the dead guy just raped and killed everyone. The fact that Perry doesn't react much more than a shrug shows you how morbid a turn this story has taken.

By the end there is some indication that civilization has come back. In which case, Perry is now merely a psychopath and murderer so he doesn't really know how to function. Actually the story ends before the civilization can really get to Pery. Radiation and the like.

And it should be noted that the founding father stories that accompanied these chapters in their original form aren't in this collection. That's fine but they were the best parts of the original series.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant, disturbing, hilarious fun, May 29, 2008

By 

Johnny Utah (from the band "Blues Hammer") - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Apocalypse Nerd (Paperback)

Peter Bagge has to be one of the sharpest and most vivid writers working in any medium. It's a crime that this guy isn't more well known. Case and point: I read "Apocalypse Nerd" after finishing the current best-selling novel "Water For Elephants".... and after reading 300+ pages of said novel, I thought to myself: this novel spins sort of a nice yarn or whatever, but after reading 300+ pages of it I have NO IDEA who these characters are... none whatsoever. So then, I pop open this new "Apocalypse Nerd" collection and after reading about 2 pages of it, I know EXACTLY who these guys are, and they feel real, palpable. Such are the powers of Peter Bagge in capturing modern life in all of its splendor... the guy just has an innate understanding of the nuanced illogicality of the human condition, and a gift for bringing it to life.

If you are already a fan of Bagge's, you should love "Apocalypse Nerd"... it's some of his funniest and most frenetic stuff in years. If you are NEW to Peter Bagge, thank your lucky stars that you came across this, because it's going to bust you a brand new you-know-what. Once you're finished, you will definitely want to pick up one of the "Hate" collections, which still ring hilariously true to this day and are absolute strokes of genius.

My only complaint with Bagge is that I wish he was more prolific, because if he was cranking out these types of comics every other week I'd be gobbling them up. For now, I guess Ill have to content myself with whatever I can get from the guy.... but after years of bread crumbs, this "Apocalypse Nerd" collection certainly feels like a 5-course meal of funny.