In 1982 he, along with Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai, and Tom Luth, launched
Groo the Wanderer through Pacific Comics, first in Destroyer Duck #1 and Star-Slayer #5 before Groo found his way into his own series. Throughout its fifteen-year history, Groo has wandered from Pacific to Epic/Marvel, and into Image Comics.In January, 1998, Dark Horse Comics will be the new publishing home of
Groo with the release of a four-issue miniseries. Tom Fassbender got the chance to speak with Aragonés about his plans for both Groo and himself.Sergio Aragonés: There has never been what you would call a continuity to Groo; every issue is completely different. You can pick up any issue of Groo and read it without having to worry about what has happened after or before. Each book is a complete, independent story, but with this series, the four together will be a very nice book. I've done that in the past, too. There's always a little synopsis for people who want to know more about the story, but it's basically self-contained.
Tom Fassbender: Groo has always been pretty dimwitted...
Aragonés: ...always.
Fassbender: But I understand he's going to be a little more intelligent in this series.
Aragonés: He's going to be very intelligent... that's the story. He takes something and becomes very smart, surprising everybody. In the end, of course, he goes back to himself.
Fassbender: Something similar happened to Groo in #100, didn't it?
Aragonés: Not exactly. He learned how to read in #100. The reason I did that was I realized that I was blaming all his stupidity on illiteracy, but the majority of big mistakes are done by very literate people: politicians and very wealthy persons. So I wanted him to learn how to read and understand what it's all about but still act stupid. Simply learning how to read doesn't give you comprehension.
Fassbender: After Groo's run at Marvel ended, you went to Image for a year...
Aragonés: ...12 issues.
Fassbender: Right. Now you've moved to Dark Horse. How did that transition come about?
Aragonés: Even before we were going to go with Image, we had considered doing something with Dark Horse, but we figured, erroneously, that we would pick up a lot of young readers with Image. The people that read Dark Horse books are intelligent, older readers.
Fassbender: Often more literate readers.
Aragonés: Yeah, and Image was selling to a very new generation. We hoped that if we were with Image, this new generation would pick up Groo. They didn't. They continued reading what they had always read. We didn't pick up one new reader; we simply kept the same readers we had before. With this series, I know that the old readers are going to pick it up, but I hope we're going to pick up a whole bunch of new people as well.
Fassbender: What was the inspiration for Groo?
Aragonés: Around the time I started Groo, I wanted to do a comic on my own. I looked for something that wasn't there, and there were no humorous barbarian stories being told. So I invented a silly barbarian. He was never a satire of Conan, he was just of the same genre, but humorous.
Fassbender: Do many people ask you if Groo is a Conan satire?
Aragonés: Yeah, because in the United States, there's not that much humor in comics-except for the undergrounds and satire magazines like Mad. The European tradition of humor comics is nonexistent here. In the U.S. the majority of comics are superhero stories. In Europe the humor genre in very large -they tell all sorts of stories with humor.
Fassbender: Did you grow up reading comics?
Aragonés: Very much so. But comic strips and cartoons, not just comics. I was more attracted by gag cartoons and animation than by comics. I was a kid in the `40s, so I saw a lot of the black-and-white early cartoons.
Fassbender: You've been drawing Groo for fifteen years. Do you ever get tired of him?
Aragonés: No, no, no... it's a lot of fun. It's a two-part job; I spend half of the day thinking and the other part drawing, so it never gets tiring. When I get tired of drawing, then I think; and when I get tired of thinking, then I draw. It never gets boring at all. And there are so many stories to tell.
Fassbender: Groo is the type of character that you can tell almost any type of story with.
Aragonés: Yes, because even though Groo takes place during a non-existent time, we can criticize anything using a synonym or something that takes its place. For instance, when I wanted to make fun of television, I thought about puppets; when I wanted to criticize guns, I used swords.
Fassbender: One of the major themes that runs through Groo seems to be a message of anti-violence.
Aragonés: That's right. Groo's not a hero, he's a loser. He never wins. Anything. And the people who hire him lose all the time because violence doesn't win.
Fassbender: You mentioned that there are so many Groo stories to tell. Do you have plans to do any other series with Dark Horse?
Aragonés: We'll do these four issues, and then I have other projects I want to do. The long, long, long continued series, like what we had at Marvel, becomes so enslaving that you don't have time to do any other projects. As a creator, I have so many ideas that I kept putting aside because I had very little time to do anything else. Now we'll do short runs of Groo and I'll be able to do other things. For a long time I've wanted to do something about gangsters, cowboys... all kinds of subjects that I want to touch, but I haven't had a chance. I want to do a little of everything, including more Groo stories.
Fassbender: Groo has a loyal fan following, doesn't it?
Aragonés: Yes, a lot of people have been very faithful to it. I'm very happy it reaches different ages and boys, girls, old men, everybody. There's no particular group that likes Groo more than any other. The mail Groo gets is so varied. At the conventions, many parents come to me and say that when Groo arrives, they borrow it from their kids because they like it too.
Fassbender: Hampton's Hollywood Café (at Highland and Fountain in Hollywood, California) offers a "Groo Burger" on their menu. I assume you've had it?
Aragonés: Yes, it's very good. It's got two types of cheeses. And people order it, which is amazing.
Fassbender: You've worked with Mark Evanier with all but one issue of Groo...
Aragonés: Oh, Mark helps in all of them. My humor is mostly visual and I write the way I talk which -as you can see is not always the best. When I give him the issue, he goes through it with a comb and changes all of the words, adds gags and really edits it. He's done a couple of issues himself when we were doing the transition between Marvel and Image. And he came up with the ideas for The Life of Groo and The Death of Groo. He wrote those completely.
Fassbender: He's been with you since the first Groo #1?
Aragonés: From the beginning, yes.
Fassbender: How did the partnership start?
Aragonés: I know my limitations. I've been doing humor all my life, so when I was doing Groo I went to him and told him that I would need his help, and he agreed. When I started my career in comics, I started by writing more than drawing. I wrote for The House of Mystery, Young Romance, House of Horrors, Bat Lash, and all kinds of short stories. And in all of them, the editors had to help me with my English.
Fassbender: English is a tricky language to learn.
Aragonés: It is, and I learned it when I was 25. It was a difficult. Even now, I can talk and think in English, but writing is a different matter. Mark helps a lot; he does the poetry and many of the gags.
Fassbender: You've also been with Stan Sakai since the beginning...
Aragonés: He does all the lettering. Also Tom Luth, the colorist, has been working with us since the beginning.
Fassbender: Any ideas where you're going to go from here?
Aragonés: Let's hope it has a good acceptance, then I want to do a few other projects-also with Dark Horse-and then we'll do another Groo. There'll be plenty of Groo.