Joel

Joel is a supporting character in Peter Bagge's slice-of-life alternative comics, debuting in Neat Stuff #1 (1985). He inhabits the same scrappy, comedic world as Buddy Bradley and Stinky Brown, rendered as a recognizable oddball from the unglamorous margins of everyday American life.

Emerging from the scruffy, gloriously irreverent world of Peter Bagge's Neat Stuff in 1985, Joel is a fixture of Fantagraphics' underground-inflected alternative comics scene — the kind of character who feels ripped straight from the awkward margins of real life. He shares his pages with Bagge's beloved cast of misfits and oddballs, including Buddy Bradley and the unforgettable Leonard "Stinky" Brown, turning up across both Neat Stuff and Hate during a creative run that stretched across thirteen years. A minor figure by appearance count but rooted in one of the most distinctive corners of Bronze Age alternative comics, Joel is a small thread in a very rich, very weird tapestry well worth unraveling.