Comic Review/Mark Passio vid on Ignore-ance: Groo: Friends and Foes #5- Funny & Good

Art: Sergio Aragones
Story: Mark Evanier
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 20th May 2015


It’s so refreshing to read a funny comic, that’s actually funny, and not knowing, clever, ironic, self-modern, neo-liberal, feminist or Marxist.

Reading this issue of Groo: Friends and Foes #5 took me back to a time when comic books were good. A time before the influence of cultural Marxism, and what we have in the majority of comic books today.

Contemporary comic books are not funny. I want to enjoy them, but it’s impossible. How can I enjoy a comic book that reminds me of one of my old Feminism/Marxism College classes? It’s really depressing that those dated and discredited ideas have managed to permeate themselves so deeply into the psyches of writers today.

What the Hell are they doing? Have they not being paying attention to the world recently?

They do realise that Marxism is 100% sponsored by private banking interests, don’t they?

They do realise that feminism is anti-family, anti-individual and being used to enslave people to the corporate state, don’t they?

They do realise that new legislation is being passed that will make you a ‘terrorist’ if you don’t agree with the tyranny of the state, don’t they?

Do they not realise what is going on in 2015?

What the Hell is going on with all of this cultural Marxism feminist crap that I read in my comic books today?

I realise that writers have been indoctrinated by their suburban educational experiences, but they do have the Internet, right? They might have been lied to at school, but they have no excuse for doing what they are doing. They have no excuse for their ignorance.

When you have the information available, and refuse to look at it, that’s ignorance, and that’s what I see in mainstream comic books of 2015.

IGNORANCE (ignore ance) OF THE TRUTH (Please watch this short video)

Groo is different. It’s silly, and funny, and there’s no cultural Marxism in it, at all. The characters are daft, it’s written with a wink, and a sense of the absurdity of life. It made me smile, it made me think back to the times when comic books were like this, when they were their own little thing and the world looked interesting and full of possibilities.

When I read contemporary comic books I’m reading statist propaganda. I’m reading the death of all hope, the death of rebellion and any chance of human emancipation from the tyranny of the neo-liberal corporate status quo. Imagination has died, and the books are being written by suburban fanboys looking to sell a script of spectacle and quips mixed with a dollop of politically correct feminist Marxism to their all powerful Gods of the Tele ‘lie’ Vision.

I don’t want to read that. I want to read something that is good. I want to read something that doesn’t want to join the corporate borg. I want to read something that is free, something that is a celebration of life, not a negation of it.

Groo- Friends and Foes #5 is silly, and funny, and it made me smile. The characters are always smiling, even when they are frowning, even when they are being beaten up, they are doing it with a smile. If you want to smile, then buy the book. It’s timeless, and good, and unlike any other comic book out there today.


Rating: 8/10 (Daft, funny, timeless and good)

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)

Review: Groo the Wanderer: The Kids who would be Kings- Chapter 2, by Sergio Aragones

You will find 'Groo the Wanderer' in: Dark Horse Presents Issue #8

Contributors: Sergio Aragones, and others

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Release Date: 18th March 2015



Let me know if anything that I’m about to describe sounds familiar to you:

Groo (a man who likes to eat and fight) has made a young boy the king of a country called ‘Larchmout.’ Not liking what he has seen Groo has decided that the old King needs to be replaced by a new King. Groo (a very good fighter) puts his new King on the throne of Larchmout. This new King sets about changing the country he now controls, whilst Groo busies himself filling his belly. The new King collectivises industry, raises taxes and lowers wages, making everybody equally poor and lowering the quality of goods and services, since nobody cares any more as incentives for excellence no longer exist.

Because everything in the country has been collectivised the King now finds himself with incredible wealth, and he’s scared of losing it, so he builds a big army, forcing his subjects to sign up as soldiers and making it illegal for them to leave his kingdom. Larchmout is now a collectivised country of poor indentured servants with an insanely wealthy centralised control system that tells them what they can and cannot do.

Groo (the man who started it all) has a full belly, and he wants to engage in his other favourite past time- fighting. However, when he starts to fight the King’s army they tell him that they are ‘Still in training,’ and not yet ready to give him a good, satisfying fight. So he tells them he’ll be back later to fight (and defeat) them all when they are better trained.

Having failed to find a good fight Groo decides to eat again, but there’s nothing decent to eat anymore in a collectivised country where the incentive to excel has gone and all wealth is going to the King. The people are understandably upset that all they have to eat is ‘left-over garbage,’ and Groo slowly begins to realise that his new King is just as bad as his old King.

What is he going to do? He’s already tried a new King, and all it did was make things worse. A young girl then walks up to Groo with the obvious solution. ‘We do not need another King! What this lands needs is a Queen.’ The narrative thus concludes, and will likely continue with a new Queen put on the throne by Groo.

I’ll ask the question again. Does any of that sound familiar to you? To me it sounds like the history of the modern world, portrayed in a ridiculous comic book strip that is nowhere near as ridiculous as the actual reality that it is satirising. This is the history of US imperialism, of faux-democracy, of Communism, of China, Russia, Britain, Iraq, Afghanistan and America today.

Here’s another question- Who is the figure of ‘Groo’ supposed to be? Who is this man who goes wandering around the world putting Kings on thrones, whilst interested only in eating and fighting? Here’s my take on what he is supposed to represent:

The obvious conclusion to be drawn would be that Groo is America, but I don’t see it that way. Groo is not America, or the UK, or China, or Russia. No, Groo is the power behind the power. The power that controls temporary Kings and Queens, putting little boys and girls in positions of power, only to see them destroy that country, time after time after time. Groo is an idiot, a dolt, a fool, but he’s the worst kind of fool. He’s a fool who places people in positions of power and naively expects them to do something different than the last person he put into a position of power. So who is he?

Is he the globalists, the new world order, the banksters? I don’t think so. Remember that Groo is not a devious manipulator. He’s not interested in world domination, all he’s interested in is fighting and stuffing his belly. He puts Kings on thrones, but he doesn’t try to manipulate them like a puppet on a string. He places them on the throne because he’s an idiot who doesn’t know what he is doing.
Bearing this in mind you cannot really conclude that Groo is a satire of the ‘illuminati’ or any other occulted group of world controllers.

Groo is the collective mentality of humanity encapsulated as it is today. He’s a great lumbering, bumbling moron who thinks only of short-term physical pleasures. He’s a fool who gives power to petty individual tyrants, thinking that they won’t act in exactly the same way that all petty individual tyrants act. He’s a man who keeps making the same mistakes over and over again, but always hoping for a different result. If only he can find the right leader to put on the throne, that would make everything different this time, right?

Groo believes in leaders. He believes that people should have Kings, or Queens. He believes in top down power, he believes in the legitimacy of the state. So what is Groo other than a reflection of the statist mind-set that has contaminated the world and made it what it is today?

Groo is us. He is the voter at the ballot box. He is the follower of the cult leader, the loyal subject of the latest King or Queen tyrant, dictator, president or Prime Minister. Groo is the face in the crowd at the election rally. Groo is the human race, thinking only of their bellies and the next good fight, giving away their power and allowing themselves to be slaves to their leaders.

That’s my take on Groo, that’s how I see him, but this is the first time that I’ve ever read the work of Sergio Aragones, so I’m 100% sure that my (late to the party) analysis has been said a thousand times before. All I can do is to react to his work as a new reader and declare that I’m very impressed with what I am reading. Scrub that. I’m more than impressed. What he has done here is excellent, and it’s in a category of excellence far removed from the usual nonsense that I read and review here on my comic book blog. I might be late to the party, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot catch up with the work of Sergio Aragones, and as I finish off this review, that’s exactly what I intend to do. I need to find out a lot more about this guy. I have a lot of reading to do.


Dark Horse Presents (overall rating) 8/10

Best story: Groo the Wanderer: ‘The Kids who would be Kings’ Chapter 2, by Sergio Aragones (Excellent cutting edge satire)- 10/10

Worst story: Murder Book: Night Fare, by Ed Brisson- (Empty, bleak, distressing and depressing) 2/10