Letters to Sergio
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Sergio Aragonés is my favorite cartoonist and creator of my favorite comic book series, Groo the Wanderer. I’ve been a fan ever since I found a second-hand copy of In MAD We Trust!, and quickly fell in love with the spontaneity, wit and inventiveness of his work. It’s just so effortlessly hilarious.
Today is Sergio’s birthday, so I thought I’d share a letter of mine that saw print in issue 11 of Sergio Aragonés Funnies a few months back:
Dear Sergio,
As a longtime fan of your work, I can’t overstate what a treat it is to read each and every issue of Funnies. Your pantomime gags, Plop!-esque vignettes and delightfully jam-packed puzzles crack me up without fail, but the autobiographical stories are by far my favorite feature. It’s fascinating (and a lot of fun) to read accounts of your amazing life experiences, each bursting at the seams with your signature expressiveness, hilarity and warmth.
Your work continues to entertain and inspire me, and this comic is a treasure. Thank you for drawing it!
Your pal,
Tyler Sticka
Portland, OR
This is actually my second letter printed in a Sergio comic. The first was six years ago in issue two of the Groo miniseries, Hell on Earth. It was a tad less reverent:
Dear Groo Crew,
Thank you for allowing me the fantastic opportunity to meet almost all of you at the 2007 Comic-Con in celebration of Groo’s twenty-fifth anniversary. Sergio’s my cartooning idol, and it was amazing to show him in-person the Groo illustration I did for the souvenir book.
More importantly, I’d like to thank you for returning to this character after such a long absence. Not because I enjoy reading his adventures and laughing out loud every issue; surely you’re all too bright to buy that sort of half-hearted line of transparent compliments. No sirs, I’m thanking you for providing the structure my life so desperately needs and, up until recently, the gourd-nosed one so diligently provided.
You see, earlier this year I tracked down the last Groo comic I needed. I had all of them, every story, in English. The pursuit of this goal had taken me through all the ups and downs of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood (the latter term applied loosely given the fact that I still read comic books). As my initial excitement for this accomplishment waned, I found myself grasping for some sort of permanence and, having been abandoned by the pursuit of the last telling of that first joke, I spiraled into an abyss of disappointment and shame. Where once I was a wildly successful millionaire philanthropist with the world at my fingertips, my motivation now dissolved until I found my only professional pursuit to be that most deplorable of occupations: cartoonist. My mental state also worsened, as I complained to my psychotherapist of strange urges to change my name “Gary Grossman” and start hunting for copies of Groo in Tahiti.
But now, Groo is coming back! Normalcy will be restored and my life will regain balance. Perhaps soon I’ll finally land that much more respectable job as a puppy fur broker, maybe even move out of this box (which is already snug due to all the Groo comics). Thank you Sergio, Mark, Stan and Tom for answering my prayers.
Gradually stabilizing,
Tyler StickaP.S. You’ll be receiving an invoice for the sum total of psychiatric bills incurred as a result of your elongated “break.”
(You’ll have to track down that issue to read Mark Evanier’s response.)
Here’s the artwork that was published in that year’s black-and-white Comic-Con souvenir book:
I met Sergio at the convention. He was very nice and extremely encouraging, which explains my record-breaking grin in this photo:
There’s a brand-new Groo miniseries in publication right now that pits the titular swordsman against the legendary Conan (the barbarian, not the talk-show host). It’s available digitally or at a comic shop near you (if you’re in the Portland area, my favorites are Excalibur and Floating World).
Feliz Cumpleaños, Sergio! Thanks again for so many laughs!