One Coin Reads 19: Groo: Friends and Foes Vol. 3 by Sergio Aragones

Groo: Friends and Foes Vol. 3 by Sergio Aragones

2015

Sometimes you want comfort, and in those times, Groo is there for you.

I don't know if there are hardcore Groo fans, in that in his near 40 years of existence, he didn't spawn toy lines, video games, or collectibles like many characters. But it must have sold enough to keep it in print. I was a Groo collector for about five years in the late 80s to early 90s, and bought lots of older issues in the discount bins. If I had to find a popular point of comparison for it, it would be like the Simpsons if the show had maintained all its best creators for the entirety of its run.

Groo has had one creative team for almost all its run: writer/artist Sergio Aragones, scripter Mark Evanier, letterer (and Usagi Yojimbo artist) Stan Sakai, and colorist Tom Luth. The first issue in this collection doesn't have Tom Luth, and that's the only time I ever saw the team broken up, but I haven't read a new Groo book in over twenty years. It's not a book that is based on story. It's a book that recycles the same jokes in an infinite variety. That's not a criticism at all. That's why it's great, you always get what you want when you read a Groo book.

Here is Groo:

-he is unfathomably stupid

-he will kill you if you call him a mendicant

-he likes cheese dip

-if you go against him, he will destroy your life

-if you work with him, he will destroy your life

-if you meet him, he will destroy your life

Groo travels with a dog, Rufferto, who is substantially smarter than Groo yet thinks Groo is a great man.

Somehow, Aragonés has managed to tell jokes based on this for decades and still make them funny. Evanier, who does the dialogue, deserves lots of credit for his work, which is often remarkable. He lets Groo say things in the least sensible way, and gives others dialogue to flesh them out perfectly. He also writes dozens of lines per issue in rhyming verse. I can't imagine how many rhymes he's done in his decades with the book. 

And so with this book, was it as good as the Groo I was reading twenty years before? Not quite, but surprisingly close.

Groo tries to find the father of a girl by asking everyone about a son's mother.  The non-Tom Luth coloring was too dark and over-shaded, and I was happy to see him return

The Groo from Epic Comics (and Pacific Comics and Image Comics) had a formula to their story. It was almost always one issue tales, sometimes two issues, but each issue would have a resolved ending even if a story thread continued. The first page was a set up, the second and third a ridiculously detailed two-page spread with lush lettering and poetry. Then the story would get increasingly convoluted before everything of value was destroyed because of Groo. It wasn't a moral book, but it often had classical irony where someone who tries to plot too much ends up having double the misfortune for their effort.

This series has most of that, but has relaxed the formula. The opening page of each issue is a poem by the Minstrel catching readers up. The two page spread is there, but where the story calls for it.

The ridiculous two page spreads are still in each issue, but not on pages two and three, and without the gorgeous titles

This story is a little different, it's issues 9-12 of a short series titled Friends and Foes, which was a sort of greatest hits for supporting characters, with an overarching plot about a young girl with an inheritance name Kayli who wants to find her father. Naturally, lots of characters want to capitalize on her wealth, except Groo. The story hurt the issues because time was devoted to featuring a character that wasn't really funny. The reader was meant to sympathize with Kayli, which is fine, but it wasn't what I liked from a Groo book.

Kayli is a decent, clever person

The chaos that ended each issue of the old series is here, but more so at the end of four issues than in each issue. Other than that, it's really close to what classic Groo was. Throughout the book, I laughed a lot. And it's really funny, not smirking funny, but actual laugh out loud funny. 

The essential components of a Groo book are still here. It's masterful how organically Aragones can weave a complicated story. A kingdom where music is outlawed forces musicians to gather outside the border. They get Groo to bang a drum and enter the kingdom so that the king's army will be killed by Groo when attempting to stop him. The king realizes he has to kill Groo or lose face, so he sends his army to a neighboring kingdom as an excuse not to attack him. This lets the musicians return and throw a festival. The king sees people flocking to his kingdom and has to stop the festival. The stories in Groo can be so complicated, but they are told clearly and with real humor.

A crazy festival inspired by Groo's drumming

And Aragonés art is incredible. He's a doodler, he's not doing realistic illustrations. But he has a huge variety in the clothes, the characters, the buildings. There is an unimaginable variety. I don't know where he gets his inspiration from, but everything looks unique. It's as impressive now as it ever was.

I'm not going out to buy more of these books because I have 100 issues of Groo already, and while I can remember some stories, they are so dense that rereading any of them still surprises me. I don't think you need every issue of Groo. This book was marked down and I bought it just to check out what Groo was up to in the 21st century. 

I'm happy to say, the Groo abides.