Sergio Aragonés Groo: Hell On Earth #3, January 2008
Sergio Aragonés sold his first professional work in 1954. Er… uh… 66 years ago.
That was in Mexico, and he was still in high school. In 1962, he immigrated to the United States, did a few odd jobs, and eventually showed up at the door of Bill Gaines and Mad Magazine.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Since then, his work would fill an Encyclopedia. No, scratch that. A library. A very cool and humorous library.
The Comics Journal declared him “one of the most prolific and brilliant cartoonists of his generation” and yet somehow, that remains an understatement.
Groo the Wanderer is essentially a parody of Conan and its ilk. A parody that’s lasted 40 years, thanks to Aragonés’ imaginative storytelling and witty cartooning (with the help of collaborator Mark Evanier) and all those amazing artistic details and flourishes.
Those details are obvious in the printed comic of course, but so much more so in the original art. And not a lot of Groo original art is floating around. Sergio has kept many of his complete issues.
We were fortunate to publish an IDW Artist Edition of Sergio’s Groo work, so I was able to see a few hundred pages of all those glorious details.
And I’m very fortunate to own this splash, purchased from Sergio directly.
Outstanding cartoonist. Outstanding guy.
Another creator that I dearly miss from the 2020 convention circuit.
Damn you, 2020.
