To mark the digital debut of Peter Bagge's Hate and Dame Darcy's Meat Cake, Fantagraphics Books and comiXology are offering the first issues of both series for free for a limited time.

First published in 1990, Hate chronicles the life of Bagge's longtime protagonist Buddy Bradley, a malcontent who comes of age in the Seattle grunge scene before moving back to suburban New Jersey and his dysfunctional family. One of the bestselling alternative comics of the '90s, Hate ran for 30 issues; Bagge resurrected the title in 2000 for a series of Hate Annuals. A Hate follow-up, Buddy Buys a Dump, is planned for release in June.

Published by Fantagraphics since 1993, Darcy's Meat Cake delves into a neo-Victorian world of humor, romance and frequently tragic fairy tales featuring such characters as Effluvia the Mermaid, the roguish roué Wax Wolf, Igpay the Pig-Latin pig and Stregapez, who speaks by dispensing Pez-like tablets through a hole in her throat.

“Debuting Hate and Meat Cake digitally on comiXology marks a new era for these historic Fantagraphics titles,” Fantagraphics Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds said in a statement. “Although the trade paperbacks collecting these works are perennial classics, this marks the first time that the single issues of these generation-defining classics have been widely available in well over a decade. Now with comiXology’s help, readers around the world will be able to experience them anew and discover just what makes these books so timelessly great.”