Sergio Aragones’ Groo: The Hogs Of Horder
Sergio Aragones’ Groo: The Hogs Of Horder – Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai, Tom Luth & Michelle Madsen (Dark Horse Books)
Most people discover Sergio Aragones work through MAD, however I discovered and fell in love with his work through Groo when the book was published by Marvel. I was in one of those strange ‘I want to try something different’ moods, and purely by accident stumbled across a comic book with strange looking barbarian character on the cover, almost a caricature of Conan, and being a fan of Howard’s adventurer, I took a chance, picked it up and I’ve been a fan ever since. That was more than twenty years ag0, and no I’m not going to give you an exact figure, didn’t you parents ever tell you it rude to ask old people about their age? Pah… Most books tend to lose their shine and their edge after a couple of decades – if they last that long, and have to be reinvented, rebranded or relaunched in an effort to attract a new audience and keep their original readers, but not Groo. No sir, Groo, much like Led Zeppelin’s song, remains the same, each issues being crammed full of running gags (Cheese Dip anyone?) and our erstwhile hero’s ability to ‘err’ and sink every ship he sets foot on. ‘Hogs Of Horder’ introduces the concept of economics to Groo, although our hero is unaware of it, as he only seeks to join armies for battle and the fray and to ruin each and every business that he seeks gainful employment with in order to gain money with which to purchase food and things, and satirises Western Capitalism, or more specifically US Economic policy and the way that business operated under the Bush administration, and how countries and their populations can take the express escalator to hell because someone, somewhere else can make glass vases (and everything else) for a hell of a lot less than anyone at home can. Twenty something years after first discovering Groo, and the book is still laugh out loud funny, and more relevant than it’s ever been, and ‘Hogs Of Horder’ is quite possibly one of Aragones and Evanier’s finest moments. Absolutely essential… Tim Mass Movement
