Graphic novel review: Sergio Aragones’ Groo: ‘The Hogs of Horder’- It’s the end of the world, and I feel fine

By: Sergio Aragones
Wordsmith: Mark Evanier
Letterer: Stan Sakai
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: August 2010


On the surface this book is about a big old twit of a man (Groo) and his funny little dog (Rufferto) as they travel around the world causing chaos and mayhem whether they go, having fights, destroying factories (or wherever they work) and sinking every ship that they sail on. That’s the surface, but what this big old twit of a man actually represents is random chaos and the likelihood that what can go wrong will go wrong. It’s the reaction of the people around them to these disasters that’s telling. The catastrophes that befall them in ‘The Hogs Of Horder’ sound very familiar to me. Here’s what I spotted.

- USA entering a period of truce with China after the civil war and eventual victory of Mao Zedong’s Communist party in October 1949.
- USA beginning to outsource it’s manufacturing base to China, in order to cut costs of wages.
- USA seeing beginning of mass unemployment caused by this policy of outsourcing.
- The idiocy of the US car industry, insisting on making big cars that nobody wants, or can even afford as the jobs have now all been outsourced.
- Managers and executives of US corporations caring only about their own inflated salaries, and not thinking about their workers.
- US industry thinking they can solve problems caused by their outsourcing policies by borrowing money from bankers.
- Business owners deliberately destroying their businesses in order to apply for loans.
- US going to war in order to protect the business interests of their wealthy elite. Justifying it by calling the dictator that they themselves installed, a ‘Despicable Madman,’ even though he was a valuable ally just a week previously.
- Ridiculous propaganda used to justify these wars for the rich.
- The continued idiocy of the US car manufacturing industry, insisting that customers want something that they neither want, nor can afford.
- Products flooding western markets cannot even be purchased as nobody has any money to buy them.
- Bankers stop giving out loans, as they are not being repaid.
- US industry destroyed by outsourcing, with the knock-on affect of unemployment and businesses not being able to repay their loans to the banks.
- Banks go belly up, and get bailed out by US government.
- Big businesses also go belly up, and are bailed out by US government.
- US government backs itself up with wars for resources.
- US wars cause tribal battles between competing religious factions (Sunni/Shiaa) in the countries that have been liberated/destroyed.

- US war propaganda makes less and less sense as reality kicks in.

- Price of oil for normal people does not go down, despite all of the wars that were based on oil.
- US begins to borrow money from China.
- Refugees from war-zones start to flee to US in order to escape from the tribal conflicts stirred up by the US invasions.
- Huge problems in US, the public looks for scapegoats, and immigrants are blamed.
- Banks are charging huge interest rates for loans, and average people are still broke despite government bailouts of banks and industry.
- People can’t afford homes.
- Or anything really.
- There are no jobs.
- Wages are going down because of immigration and influx of cheap labour.
- Army/Police is sent in to beat up the people, ‘I am only following orders Mother.’
- Sports and theatre are used as distractions in order to pacify an angry population.
- US goes to China asking for loans.
- China, scared of the US war machine, and eager to get Americans to buy their goods, agrees to loan US the money.
- Loaned money goes to the people who caused all of the problems, not the suffering people.
- Average US people still broke.
- Wealth inequality grows.
- China buys up everything of value in the US.
- China now owns the US.
- The end of the United States.
- Centralised control system of wealthy elite’s operating out of China own everything and everybody.
- A New World Order?

That sounds pretty depressing doesn’t it? It’s the tale of the decline of an entire country, and we’re not just talking about the US here, we’re talking about all of Europe as well. An entire western civilisation collapsing because of stupidity, greed, war and debt. All to be replaced by a Chinese system of centralised control system slavery. That’s not the future, it’s what’s happening right now, but this book ends on an optimistic note. It leaves the reader with a final message that, yes we are collapsing, but just because we are coming to the end, that doesn’t mean that we can’t begin to start again. And how do we start again? We do things on a local level, we start our own businesses, learn skills, and trade with each other on a local level.

It’s a great way to finish the book, giving real solutions to the mess that the world is currently in. It’s not the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new one, so let’s do a better job this time. You don’t have to join the armies of this collapsing system, you don’t have to join their control systems, and you don’t have to go to them with a begging bowl, like a servant, like a slave. You can do things for yourself. Stop being reliant, and start being independent and self-sufficient.

That’s what I took from this daft comic book about a big old twit of a man and his funny little dog. It’s a fantastic achievement to have so much content and real world analysis in what is ostensibly a silly little comic book. This book really is outstanding. Funny, silly, ridiculous ‘The Hogs of Horder’ is as good an analysis of the causes for the impending collapse of western civilisation as you’re likely find not just in a comic book, but in any book.

Rating: 10/10 (The decline, decline and fall of western civilisation)