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Yes, there is a Rufferto. The loyal dog who accompanies Groo as he wanders and destroys is based on a real dog — a Queensland Heeler — owned by Sergio and also named Rufferto. And several other dogs who have appeared in the comic have been based on other dogs that wandered in and around Sergio's home. In our comics, the dogs are real. It's the people who are phony.
A few years ago, we had Groo Trading Cards with wonderful drawings by Sergio on one side and illegible commentary by me on the backs. Still, they were neat cards. The main problem was that the printer (or whoever) packed them into the little foil pouches did a bad job of randomizing the cards. Ordinarily, if you buy a box of such cards and open 'em all up, you oughta wind up with two or three complete sets. Some folks didn't even get one complete set out of a box. To put things right, we started The Great Groo Trading Card Exchange, inviting all to send in their duplicates and a list of the cards they were missing. The things we couldn't help collectors with were the official Sergio Sketch Cards that were "randomly" inserted into the packets. A very small number were printed, and Sergio scrawled a little drawing on the back of every one. How rare are they? I've opened about 20 boxes and handled thousands of the cards...and I've never seen one. I wrote the text in those word balloons but I've never gotten one of these cards! The closest I came was when I found this scan on eBay, where someone sold it for more money than I would pay Sergio to build me a house.
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Usagi Yojimbo is Copyright © 2007 Stan Sakai Here at Groo Central, our favorite comic book (when we're not reading our own, and sometimes even when we are) is Stan Sakai's long-running, much-appreciated Usagi Yojimbo. Stan is a Cartoonist with a capital "C," as he's been proving for countless pages of his clever and engrossing funnybook, which actually manages to be funny when it oughta be and not funny when appropriate. The thing I (M.E.) like most about it is how Stan has thoroughly thought through his characters and their world...so you can just sit back and have a good time. I always do. The only baffling thing for me is this: If Stan can do this, why is he bothering to letter Groo? Shouldn't Sergio and I be lettering for him? I'm glad he does. Folks are now offering issues of Groo on eBay with his name listed. How many other comics have the lettering as a selling point?
Here's an oddity: Usually, I do the dialogue on Groo but for this page — printed only in one of our Spanish-language editions — I wrote the script and then Sergio translated his dialogue into Español. So to most of its readers, he was speaking the language they understood, while Tom Luth and I were speaking a foreign tongue. You can view the entire page by clicking right about here. Groo and all related characters and artwork are Copyright © 2007 Sergio Aragonés |
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