Comix Canon Club: The ancients were dirty

I'm currently working my way through the first volume of The Graphic Canon, an anthology edited by Russ Kick and published by Seven Stories Press which seeks to compile comics adaptations of the entirety of the great works of world literature. It's a pretty overblown goal, but the results are awesome, consisting of excerpts from longer works (including Action Philosophers, the Trickster anthology, Seymour Chwast's versions of The Divine Comedy and The Canterbury Tales, and Will Eisner's take on Don Quixote) and original works by the likes of Rick Geary, Rebecca Dart, Matt Wiegle, Edie Fake, and Molly Crabapple. The result is a thick brick of a book, too extensive to cover all at once, so I'm going to take it a few entries at a time, singling out the ones that I especially liked or found noteworthy. It should make for an interesting journey through some sort of representation of history...

The Epic of Gilgamesh
By Kevin Dixon

This excerpt from Kevin Dixon's ongoing adaptation (available for purchase on lulu.com or iBooks) of the world's oldest epic (taken from a translation/rendition by his father, English professor Kent H. Dixon) is pretty entertaining, depicting the larger-than-life events in a lively, cartoony style. The artwork is somewhat reminiscent of Robert Crumb in its thick, rounded lines and cross-hatched textures, with bonus exuberance, the pages pages filled with grubby detail and slapstick goofiness that livens up the fairly rudimentary text. This portion of the story involves heroic king Gilgamesh rejecting the advances of the goddess Ishtar, who responds by sending a heavenly bull to devastate his kingdom. Dixon draws the hell out of these events, with the scene of the bull zooming down from the heavens being stunning enough to be used on the book's cover, and he exaggerates moments like hundreds of men falling into a pit made by the bull or this gross-out attack on Gilgamesh's buddy Enkidu:

It's a crazy comic, full of googly-eyed background characters and plenty of dirt, muck, and blood, ending up (in this portion of the story) as a sort of ancient-history action-comedy. The rest of this story is definitely something to seek out and enjoy.
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Bonus: Dixon appears to be a Groo fan, unless this happens to be a randomly-chosen sound effect:


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Lysistrata
By Valerie Schrag

This adaptation of Aristophanes' play, in which the titular woman tries to stop a war between Athens and Sparta by convincing women all over Greece to withhold sex from their husbands until they make peace, is very theatrical, working from Valerie Schrag's own translation of the original Greek text and consisting entirely of scenes of dialogue between characters. That's no complaint though; Schrag gives her characters such life and emotion that the short length of the adaptation makes one wish for more. In fact, that compression (which was probably necessary, this being one of the stories created especially for this anthology, rather than an excerpt of a longer work) is probably the chief complaint here, with the entire plot seeming to play out over a couple days at most. But that's a minor issue, and the gist of the play is communicated very well, making for a ribald, funny comedy. In fact, "ribald" doesn't communicate the naughtiness of the play; it zooms past "bawdy" and "raunchy" into "downright dirty" territory as soon as Lysistrata declares, "We must abstain from dick." Soon their breasts are escaping their already clingy, revealing clothing in order to tease the men, whose massive erections are visible lifting up their tunics until escaping as well, making the force of the raging hormones that Lysistrata is trying to harness evident for all to see. But it's not all explicit; plenty of nice wordplay is brought to bear as well:



And the discussions of men and women's different approaches to resolving their differences is fascinating, seeming ahead of its time by several millenia. It's a lovely adaptation, full of wonderful body language that's perfect for theater, and it makes me want to see more work in a similar vein by Schrag. Luckily, there are plenty of examples of classic drama to choose from.

The Neverending Fray: Kings have to make the hard decisions, like where to send the idiots

Groo the Wanderer #13
By Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai (lettering), and Tom Luth (coloring)
Published by Epic Comics, 1986

With a title like "The Tale of King Sage", I was hoping for some sort of take on the burdens of power or absolute power corrupting even the wise, but the series wasn't in full-on satire mode by this point, so it's really "just" a story of Groo screwing things up. He comes across a kingdom having a coronation ceremony, and hey, it's the Sage getting crowned king! It turns out to be a continuation of the short story in which he was tasked with healing a dying king (spoiler: he didn't succeed), and he tells Groo about how the people of the kingdom were going to revolt after the king died, but he convinced the queen to take him on as an advisor (he doesn't explain how he got promoted from advisor to king) so he could guide the kingdom to prosperity for all. He and everyone else expect Groo to ruin everything, but even though he entertains the idea of having Groo killed, he can't do it, so he sends Groo with an army to guard the kingdom's northernmost passage. Unfortunately, he also mentions that some land which is being used for grazing should be converted to farmland, which makes Groo think that everyone in the land should quit whatever their job is and become farmers, enforcing that edict wherever he travels. Hilarity (and complete economic meltdown) ensues.

It's a fairly rudimentary story, but a lot of the little moments shine. When Groo wants to get into the castle to see the new king, he has a silly back-and-forth with a guard and then just forces his way in:

And Sage recognizes his visitor just by description, leading to a great entrance (I especially like the way Groo is choking a guard with his own helmet):

A scene in which Groo's army is recruited is pretty amusing, with a nice bit of meta-humor as a commander recognizes that he is the straight man in a joke:

When an army is eventually raised for Groo, it is comprised completely of imbeciles, including a guy who asks "Where are we?" everywhere they travel, which becomes pretty funny just through repetition:

Groo orders people everywhere he goes to start farming, even farmers:

When he gets to his destination, the guy guarding the border has gone insane through lack of human contact, and Sergio's depiction of him is hilarious, complete with filthy, tattered clothes, a spider web, and a bird perched on his helmet:

This accumulation of silliness makes for a rather entertaining story, even if it's a predictable one that ends with the expected ending of Groo being chased off in anger. Yes, the series is definitely settling into a groove here, and more hilarity should definitely be expected.

Next: "The Quarry"

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This issue's stats:
Recurring characters: Just Sage.

Hidden message(s): Ugh, I'm still too unobservant to find any. UPDATE: As described in issue #27, the message can be found by reading the first word in each of Groo's word balloons in this panel:



Moral: "The man who most obeys the king is the man who gets crowned."
Spanish words: The previous king was named Lapiz, which means "pencil".
Running jokes: Not really a joke, but Groo, of all people, identifies the thing on the end of Sage's staff as a porron. The contents of the liquid inside said porron would become a regular letter column joke. Groo also displays terrible table manners, sinks a ship, says "Did I err?", and confirms he is a fool by saying "I can plainly see that!" Plus, there's a mention of mulch:



Mark Evanier's job(s): Lackey
Letter column jokes: In response to a letter which asks why there are two Groo #1s, Mark begins the tradition of joking about there being so many number one issues of the series and saying that they should just make every issue #1. By the time the Epic series ended and the Image series started, there would be four of them, and since there have now been several miniseries, there are even more. There's a mention of lots of people asking for a sketch, and Mark defines mulch (in Spanish!) and starts to define it again before being cut off by the end of the letter column.

Superman: He really is super, man

Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero
By Larry Tye
Published by Random House

For those of us on the "inside" of comics fandom, who know all the details about all the superheroes, the on- and off-page origin stories, the first appearances and major in-continuity events, the reboots and revamps, the major creative teams, the issue numbers of the big stories, all the ups and downs of decades of comics stories, a book exploring the history of just one character might seem unnecessary. But when it's the original superhero, the one that started it all, and when the behind-the-scenes research is deep enough, it can be an illuminating read, especially if it has an all-encompassing scope that is full of fascinating historical details. That's the case with this book, in which writer Larry Tye manages to compile nearly a century of happenings into one thick prose volume, exploring the genesis of the Man of Steel from the first inklings in the minds of two young men from Cleveland, through his explosion in the blossoming comic book medium, and in nearly every other format conceivable throughout the ensuing decades, including prose, radio, television, film, and theater. It's an extensive overview, one that manages to cohere surprisingly well for such a sprawling tale that features dozens of contributions to the character's legacy, even occasionally pausing to ruminate on the lasting qualities of the character that manage to make him remain recognizable and at least somewhat relevant all these years later.


The best parts of the book are the pure, how-it-all-happened details of how the character began and was nurtured through the ages since. Tye describes the family history and adolescences of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and examines how they met worked together to create their signature character, who sprang to life on the comics page, seeming like an overnight hit, even though he was actually several years in the making and went through a number of forms before the success of Action Comics #1. Tye also examines the background of publishers Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz, looking at their underhanded business tactics and exploitation of the creators, but also their genius for taking a hit and making  it bigger and bigger through savvy decisions like keeping the hero from participating directly in World War II (lest he lose his luster once the war was over, like many other heroes who joined the battlefront) and retaining control of his depiction in other media, cementing their position at the top of their field for decades and ensuring that money kept pouring into their pockets. While Tye doesn't exactly take a side in the still-ongoing conflict between the Siegel and Shuster families and the corporate heirs of Donenfeld and Liebowitz, he does keep following the creators throughout the years, noting their various legal battles and attempts to regain ownership of the character (or at least enough money to live on), and making sure to note their struggles to survive while their creative progeny netted millions for others. 


And this is just one of the fascinating stories Tye digs up. He also describes the activist mission of producer Bob Maxwell in creating the Superman radio show of the 1940s, which culminated with a battle between the hero and the KKK; the mystery behind the death of George Reeves, who played Superman on TV in the 1950s; the larger-than-life shenanigans of Alex and Ilya Salkind, who produced the first few Superman movies; the goofy stylings of editor Mort Weisinger, who was in charge of the Superman comics in the 1960s; the circumstances that led to the infamous "Death of Superman" story in the 1990s; and much, much more. The purview of the book is as wide-ranging as possible, taking information from sources like Jerry Siegel's unpublished memoir, hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and interviews with surviving writers, artists, actors, and family members. Tye discusses Superman's various merchandising and marketing tie-ins, the way he has inspired people throughout the years, and the various permutations his stories have taken in terms of powers, subjects, and scale.


It's in less-concrete subjects like these where Tye stumbles a bit, often devoting more space than necessary to such nebulous ideas as Superman's inspiring spirit (including mentions of people who are obsessed with the character to the point of having Superman-themed weddings), and an entire chapter which discusses Superman and spirituality. Even if it didn't interrupt the ongoing history of Superman's early years, the religious discussion is a bit of a reach anyway, with Tye trying to read aspects of Judaism into the character's mythology due to the fact the Siegel and Shuster were (secular) Jews, then discussing how various religions (and the non-religious) claim him as a symbol. It's a bit tiresome, and based mostly on speculation, as is the even more ridiculous notion floated elsewhere that Superman is some sort of living spirit that gets channeled by his various creators, rather than the product of specific people's imagination, a lucky combination of ideas that hit at just the right time to strike a chord with the populace and grow into something larger than life. Given the amount of space he dedicates to the travails of Superman's creators, Tye doesn't seem to subscribe to this idea, but any discussion of it at all is an insult to creative types anywhere.


On a more superficial front, Tye has some quirks to his writing style that take some getting used to, including referring to people by their first name (there are many mentions of Jerry, Joe, Jack, and Harry in the discussion of Superman's early history, for example) and starting chapters off with sentences like "His mission was to scrape off the barnacles," and then taking a paragraph or more to get around to revealing who he is talking about. He'll discuss events out of order at times (John Byrne's revamp of Superman in the 1980s is described before going back to discuss Crisis on Infinite Earths and the stories that led to it), and he repeatedly follows descriptions of money-making merchandise or other tie-ins with the phrase "Ka-ching". But these are just stylistic elements to get used to, and are far from dealbreakers.

No, the value of the information contained in the book is obvious for those interested in the stories behind the comics they enjoy, and the amount of research work that has gone into putting it all together is impressive. Tye apparently found a subject that fascinated him, and the effort he put into teasing out the relevant details in a story spanning so much time and so many players makes for a reward to all who read the story. There's a lot to take in in the volume, but if you've got a fraction of Tye's patience, there's plenty to entertain and instruct, both on the comics page or movie screen and in the scaffolding that built the whole enterprise itself.

UPDATED! The Neverending Fray: Groo never gets any credit

Groo the Wanderer #11
By Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai (lettering), and Tom Luth (coloring)
Published by Epic Comics, 1986

This issue features a guest turn fro the Minstrel, who is now the official bard of Arcadio (in what appears to be his second appearance, after the previous issue), another wandering adventurer in the Conan the Barbarian mold, although he never seems to do anything, instead coasting on his handsomeness and taking the credit for everything Groo does. He calls Groo "lackey" and holds himself in high esteem, and he always manages to come out on top, with women hanging all over him and everyone rewarding him because he fits their idea of a hero, rather than because he actually does anything. There's some good genre satire in that idea, but he usually annoys me because his pomposity could use some deflating, yet by his nature he has to come out on top, with Groo humiliated and reviled as usual. In this case, Arcadio has successfully obtained a magic goblet (through Groo's efforts), but he finds that it is worthless without a certain elixir, so the team heads off on another quest, which Groo manages to complete by accident, then returns to claim their reward. The big gag of the issue is that the people of the kingdom offering the reward are hideously ugly (Sergio gives them a warty, boil-covered, toothless, look reminiscent of Lena Hyena, and Mark drives the homage home by naming the princess Alaja Wolverton): 

This causes Arcadio to give the credit and reward to Groo, who flees in horror, missing the reveal that the kingdom is actually under a spell, and the goblet and elixir turn them into their true, beautiful selves, even fixing the issue of rancid cheese dip. Hilarious? I dunno, the lack of internal consistency bothers me; why did the people offer Groo cheese dip before their transformation when they knew it would be nausea-inducing? And did Arcadio know the reason behind the ugliness, or did he just luck out? He did only accept the princess' marriage proposal after the curse was lifted, so signs point to him taking advantage of the situation, but his general obliviousness and unchanging expression make it hard to tell, and while the reversal of the situation to make life terrible for Groo is amusing, it seems more unfair and cruel than usual. It's funny when Groo fails, but the series is at its funniest when everyone around him also suffers, especially those who try to take advantage of him. Arcadio does the opposite, taking credit for everything Groo does right and managing to benefit at little cost to himself. It's kind of infuriating.

Maybe it's my antipathy to Arcadio, but I like Groo's other plot in the issue, in which he keeps wandering off to defend a village from a horde of invading dwarves, condemning them to return assaults once he leaves and just barely missing this awesome-looking giant lizard:

If only he had just spent the issue fighting that thing! He also refuses to leave the village until he gets a reward,  and, oddly, is interested in its women:

On that tack, there's also a touch of PG-13 nudity in this scene, with one of the group of nubile wenches fawning all over Arcadio apparently being topless (there's also something strange going on with her leg):

For some other nice Sergio details, here is a bit of the splash page, in which one of the dwarves has the rim of his Mongolian-style furred helmet pulled down across his face, and other one is emitting one of those signature skull word balloons that signifies death, but the skull has a bushy beard and moustache:

This might not be my favorite issue of the series, but I can always find plenty to enjoy anyway.

Next: Skipping to issue #13, it's "The Tale of King Sage"

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This issue's stats:
Recurring characters: The Minstrel and Arcadio

Hidden message(s): I still didn't notice any! There's even a perfect spot to hide away some "This is the hidden message" text on the labels of some shelves full of bottles of dusty old potions. As revealed in issue #21, the letter page has a list of names of people who wrote complimentary things, but Mark supposedly didn't have room to print their full letters. The real reason for printing their names is that taking the first letter of each one reads "This is the hidden message." Sneaky!
Moral: "Beauty may be a curse...but not as great a curse as stupidity."
Spanish words: The attacking dwarves are called the Gorditos ("little fat ones"), and their giant lizard is the Gordosa, which I think is some sort of Spanish play on words. The Minstrel mentions the hordes of Turulato, which means "nincompoop".  Merluza (the name of the guy who made the elixir which Groo and Arcadio must fetch) is the Spanish word for hake, a kind of fish. Alaja appears to be a prefix meaning "sub-", so maybe naming the ugly princess Alaja Wolverton is a humble statement of Sergio's inferiority to Basil Wolverton's when it comes to depicting ugliness.
Running jokes: I don't know if this is the first time it has shown up, but there's an example of a classic Groo joke in this issue, in which somebody describes something and says "...as any fool can plainly see!" with Groo responding "I can see that!" That one always makes me smile. Also, there's a lot of talk of cheese dip.
Mark Evanier's job(s): Lyrist
Letter column jokes: Mark says that he's trying to convince Sergio to expand the letter column to fill the whole book, and he can draw the comics in the margins, like he does in MAD. He also defines mulch and thanks everybody who wrote in, "even the one or two of you who have written in to tell us that this book stinks because it doesn't have any mutants in it." And one letter makes me laugh because the writer notes three appearances of Groo in Sergio Aragones' More Mad Marginals, beating me to my shtick by 25 years.

The Neverending Fray: Back to an earlier issue for some magic and violence

Groo the Wanderer #6
By Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai (lettering), and Tom Luth (coloring)
Published by Pacific Comics, 1983

Looking at the front cover of this issue, it seems a bit bland, and weird to pose Groo with his back to the reader, but turn it over, and it becomes an excellent gimmick and a pretty funny joke:

That's pretty great, and as usual with Sergio, the details are what sell it, especially all the reversed text, including the signature, which is now on the other side of the dead lizard's sword, and Groo's swords being visible from this side of the logo. I also like the way the readers are placed in the position of the bloodthirsty lizard warriors, which is probably some commentary that is overly deep and not intended in the slightest.

As for the issue inside, it's another good romp, with Groo getting stuck in the middle of a battle between wizards, who are fighting over a kidnapped prince. Groo starts out on the side of the kidnappers (accidentally, or at least through being easily misled), but he quickly switches when he learns that the reward for the prince's return is one third of the kingdom and the hand of the princess (oddly, he's mostly interested in the "gorgeous" princess, an indication of  his still-unformed characterization), and there are a bunch of good gags about his stupidity (the way the king cheats him out of his reward is pretty funny) and his violent nature (as when he slaughters a bunch of guys who he thinks are trying to steal his reward). Lots of great details too, both in the writing (I like the insults that one of the wizards constantly directs at Groo: "You mongrel's tonsils," "You horse-bladder," "You pimple on the back of a pig," etc.) and the art. The final gag of some mating elephants (conjured by one of the wizards) is hilarious, and I always like the various helmet decorations that Sergio likes to put on his warriors, like these guys with birds on their heads:

The "adultness" of the series was still in effect here, starting with the blood dripping from Groo's sword on the cover, and continuing with the high body count of the issue, especially this bit in which Groo (or actually a magical double) beheads one of the wizards:

There's also a little bit of PG-13 nudity (and an example of Groo's later-quashed sexual attractions):

And, in a more puerile direction, this panel, in which a soldier pisses on the tree against which Groo is sleeping:

The backup, which is nominally a Sage story, makes for an interesting example of the way the creative team liked to occasionally break the fourth wall, with a letter from Mark to Sergio "pinned" to the page:

And then interrupting the story so the two of them can explain how the comic is created, making sure to describe exactly what Mark Evanier does, since that seems to be a point of contention among readers, and already something of a running joke, possibly springing from the goofy jobs which he is listed as having in each issue. The story ends with a silly gag that "reveals" that Sergio doesn't just draw things from his imagination, he hires models to dress up as all the characters (including costumes for things like monsters and lizard men), rents animals like elephants, and builds and sinks ships, all for authenticity. Not a bad showbiz gag.

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This issue's stats:
Recurring characters: Grativo the wizard showed up again later, although he was a pretty minor member of the supporting cast. The Sage gets two panels before his story is interrupted. Looks like I was wrong about the Eclipse special being Mark's first appearance, since he and Sergio starred in the backup story here. And while they technically aren't appearances of the actual characters, people dressed as Ahax and Chakaal show up on the last page of that story.

Hidden message(s): As I've recently discovered, they weren't doing them at this point.
Moral: "The worst curses in the world are boils, pestilence, and having partners (not necessarily in that order)."
Running jokes: Cheese dip. Canter's Deli makes an appearance in the backup story, although I think this was before it had been established as a running letter column joke. And Sergio's bad grasp of English is on display in that story, with Mark translating what he is trying to say for the readers.
Mark Evanier's job(s): Verbalizer, Elucidator
Letter column jokes: Just about every letter asks what Mark does, seemingly prompting the "behind the scenes" story.
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Thanks to reader Nicholas Doyle for sending me this issue, simply out of the kindness of his heart.

UPDATED: The Neverending Fray: Groo vs. religious intolerance

Groo the Wanderer #9
By Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai (lettering), and Tom Luth (coloring)
Published by Epic Comics, 1985

Groo teams up with the Sage in this issue, and even manages to get one over on him, sort of. It's a goofy little story parodying nonsensical religious beliefs (along with the easily-fomented conflicts they can lead to), in which the dumb/wise pair are looking for food, but are stymied when one village won't let them eat their sacred apples, and the next won't allow butchering of their sacred pigs. Sage stops Groo from just taking what he wants, but outlines (in theoretical terms, which he should know better to use with Groo) a way to get both pigs and apples by setting the two villages against each other and reaping the spoils of the religious war. Groo decides to follow this plan, of course, leading to one of the more chaotically violent moments of the series so far, as the starving villages unleash their wrath against each other:

Ha ha, people slaughtering each other over their beliefs is hilarious! Everybody gets their comeuppance though, when it turns out that the beliefs were rooted in ancestral taboos which were there for a reason, that both the pigs and apples were poisonous (?), causing the people who ate them to get deathly sick. That includes the Sage himself, who is telling this story to some people over dinner, eating food which was purchased from Groo. I don't normally like to "spoil" the punchlines of these comics, but the last panel is pretty hilarious, with Sergio throwing in lots of comedy based on physical torment, including one guy who apparently about to experience explosive diarrhea:

That's just one example of the excellent comedy in this issue, which sees the creative team really settling into a groove, grasping Groo's character and how he interacts with those around him. There's a great example of this early on, when Sage saves Groo from a battle (one that he doesn't want to be saved from, saying "Can you not see I am enjoying myself?"):

I always like the "everybody repeats the same response to a statement" gag, and the huge cloud of dust as everyone (including the Sage's dog and Groo) flees is pretty great too. There's also a great exchange on the next page that uses Groo's stupid logic really well:

There's also a nice moment in which Groo forgets the details of his plan halfway through:

I love the faces he makes when he is trying to remember something, or figure out a "difficult" concept. And I always love scenes of him fighting, like this bit of the title page, in which his foot is sinking into a guy's chest and he's cutting the top of another guy's helmet off:

Yes, this might be the moment in which Groo's characterization fully settled into its "correct" form. Of course, he's still doing his wanderings alone at this point (with associates occasionally popping in for an issue or so), but that won't be rectified for another twenty issues.

One other thing worth commenting on is the variable level of anthropomorphism that shows up in this series. Animals can vary from unthinking beasts, to ones with expressions reacting to the goings-on around them, to using thought balloons to comment on the action, and in this issue, the "sacred" pigs even converse with each other and make gestures:

It's an odd conceit, and an interesting bit of flavor for the series. The most obvious use of this trope will occur when Rufferto joins Groo on his travels, since he regularly "talks" via thought balloons, but it's already firmly in place here, and it's interesting to see how it is used to add extra jokes to the background of scenes. There's always more stuff to notice in Sergio Aragones comics, isn't there?

Next: Skipping ahead to issue #11, we've got the return of the Minstrel, along with Arcadio (in his first appearance?), in "A Hero's Task".

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This issue's stats:
Recurring characters: The Sage

Hidden message(s): I still didn't find one. I don't seem to be very good at this. As revealed in issue #21, this one is ridiculous. On the ninth page of the story, taking the first letter of every word of dialogue reveals the message, "This is the hidden message. Mark and Sharman went to see "Noises Off" at the Music Center and ate at the Pacific Dining Car." I guess he never expected anyone to find this one, since it's just some random detail that Mark threw in about his life. I like the eventual format that the hidden messages settled on better.
Moral: None.
Spanish words: The villages of Marchuquera and Beniopa are named after locations in Spain.
Running jokes: Cheese dip, mendicant
Mark Evanier's job(s): Depurator (meaning: one who cleanses or purifies)
Letter column jokes: Even in this early issue, the tone of the letter column has become established. On just one page, Mark defines "mulch" three times (a joke which must have begun in one of the issues I missed, but which will persist for years to come), answers two letters composed of numbered lists of questions or requests (including one which says they should put Groo in Secret Wars II), refers to one letter in the answers to others, and plugs Cassell's Hamburgers (since Canter's Deli wouldn't give them a free meal). There's also a letter which not only jokes about not knowing what Mark does but also not knowing who he is.

UPDATED! The Neverending Fray: Groo vs. the exploitation of resources

Groo the Wanderer #7
By Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai (lettering), and Tom Luth (coloring)
Published by Epic Comics, 1985

The Sage gets billing on the cover of this issue, but he is actually relegated to a backup story, like in the Pacific issues, so maybe that secondary feature is what is really being reintroduced. The main story here hints at some sort of commentary, with Groo falling in with some ivory poachers, then being directed toward more noble goals, and trying and failing to find an ethical way to profit. It's a bit scattered, with a kind of weak (but well illustrated) punchline, some character shortcuts like Groo being too easily swayed by a mid-fray argument (he also uses the word "rapscallion", which seems too long for his vocabulary, and he calls a guy a mendicant, which is a term usually directed at him), and the unsatisfying resolution of the bad guys just getting away and Groo just wandering off and into a search for an elephant graveyard, a second plot smooshed into the first one to pad out the story. I'm not sure if there's an environmental message, aside from "poaching is bad", but the story does seem to tend in the direction of the series' still-developing social commentary. At least there are some good jokes, like this silly elephant gag (I like the way the guy's dog laughs along with him):

Or this classic back-and-forth argument:

And I really like the way Sergio depicts this dying elephant, who, in his throes of sickness, has developed the ability to stand upright, the better to do a Redd Foxx impression:

The Sage backup is one of his usual stories, where he is pressed into service by a monarch and uses his smarts to get out of it. I do like the way this establishes him as more than just a standard wandering wise man; when he is mistaken for a doctor and brought to the palace, he decides to go along with the ruse so he can see what he can get out of it. That sort of characterization gives him a nice edge (as does his gruesome solution to the problem of "healing" the sick king), and it sets him off against Groo nicely as a wanderer with intelligence who seeks to avoid conflict. He probably provides less opportunity for humor, which is why his stories are short, but there's still plenty of good Sergio art, as in this panel, when Sage's dog helps him usher some officious royal doctors out of the king's room:

Gotta love those details; there's no end to personality in a Sergio comic.

Next: Skipping ahead to issue #9, "Pigs and Apples"

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This issue's stats:
Recurring characters: The Sage, of course.

Hidden message(s): I didn't find any, so hopefully a helpful soul will stop by to point out what I missed.
As instructed in issue #21, taking the first letter of every bolded word in the word or thought balloons reveals the message, "Congratulations! You have found the hidden message for this issue. There is no message in the Sage story. Say, why not try an issue of The DNAgents or Crossfire? On sale everywhere!" Mark Evanier took every chance for a plug he could get.
Moral: "No one profits at the death of another (except for the mortician)."
Spanish words: None
Running jokes: "Did I err?", cheese dip, mendicant, Groo sinking boats
Mark Evanier's job(s): Transliterator, Utterer
Letter column jokes: Some of the letter writers are attempting to add to the book's humor by this point, but the really good stuff is still ahead. Mark does get in a joke about nobody knowing what he does, as well as a reference to him not getting paid, which is another regular gag. Interestingly, one of the letters mentions a letter from the fourth issue which called the series "stupid and silly", but said "I have to buy it because it's a Marvel." I always thought that story was apocryphal, a gag about "Marvel zombies" buying every Marvel comic whether they liked it or not, and a running joke in which people claimed they couldn't stop themselves from buying Groo, but apparently there was at least one letter which stated this. How about that.

The Neverending Fray: The social commentary is still developing

Groo the Wanderer #5
By Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai (lettering), and Tom Luth (coloring)
Published by Epic Comics, 1985

This issue tackles a big issue of a sort, that being slavery. As dumb as Groo is, he still has a moral code, as we find out when he witnesses a slave auction and calls it inhuman (he also says it is not his concern, so he's apparently willing to comment on evil, but not fight to correct it until he is forced to). He still gets caught up in the slave trade though, accepting a job offer on a ship that is "engaged in relocation of human resources for the betterment of his majesty's agricultural concerns." But once he finds out what he is a part of, he starts to struggle with the ethical implications:



That's a pretty striking moment for Groo, who is usually only concerned with fighting and eating, and possibly earning rewards for his acts of bravery. But here he gets a bit of an emotional shake-up, which facilitates an ironic turn when the freed slaves turn out to be involved in the slave trade themselves. Man's inhumanity knows no bounds, but that's all right, since it means Groo can just kill everyone for trying to take advantage of him:



The issue is a bit of an odd one, with a little less humor than usual, what with the serious subject matter, and stretching on a few extra pages after the big "Groo slaughters everyone" scene to provide an ironic comeuppance for the slavers and one last joke about Groo sinking ships. The creative team seems like they're still figuring out the rhythms of the stories, determining what sort of things do and don't work on the fly; it's pretty interesting to see. And we always get fun scenes like this killing of a bunch of soldiers in a row:



And I like this fight that Groo has with a tribal totem:




And this sequence is pretty hilarious; just look at those shredded clothes!:



Next: I don't have issue #6, so next up is the return of the Sage in #7.
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This issue's stats:
Recurring characters: None. Since ships are involved, I expected Captain Ahax to show up, but I guess he hasn't been introduced yet. I wonder when his first appearance is?

Hidden message(s): Aw nuts, even though they're supposed to be showing up by this point, I didn't find any. Found it, thanks to prompting from commenter Brian Smith: as can be seen in the image above, the sound effects form an acrostic, with the first letter of each word spelling out "Tom Luth", the series' colorist. I haven't gone back to look at the issue, but I expect other sound effects throughout form the names of the other members of the creative team. I should've been looking for this, given last issue's basis for the hidden message, but I think I missed it because I've trained myself throughout the years of reading Groo comics to look for variations on "this is the hidden message" written somewhere in the margins of panels. I obviously need to broaden my scope of search.
Moral: "Freedom is not an individual effort. Yours comes only when you grant others theirs."
Spanish words: None, although the character name Macotela sounds Spanish (but isn't, as far as I can tell).
Running jokes: Groo is offered all the cheese dip he can eat to work on the ship, and his tendency to sink ships is mentioned, and even though it has barely been established, already gets upended. Also, this isn't a joke, but it's the first issue in which I've noticed the little skull on Groo's belt:



Mark Evanier's job(s): Dialogist
Letter column jokes: The style of the letter column seems to still be forming as of this issue, simply printing a bunch of complimentary letters with a note from Mark at the end, although one person seems to have picked up the joke of not knowing what Mark does on the comic. The letters all talk about the first issue, so maybe I didn't miss anything by not having any of the first four actual issues.