Biography
Sergio Aragonés is a Spanish-Mexican cartoonist and writer from Castellón, Spain. He was among the main artists of the humor magazine "Mad" for decades. His best known comics creation is Groo the Wanderer, a long-running parody of Conan the Barbarian. Groo is a master swordsman like Conan, but he is also a gullible buffoon with little understanding of the world and people surrounding him. He unintentionally causes mass destruction wherever he goes, which is why he can never settle anywhere.
Aragonés' other popular creation is the Western antihero Bat Lash, a charismatic ladies' man and gambler who attracts numerous enemies despite being a self-styled pacifist. Bat does not like fighting, but he has few other options to survive. Aragonés has also worked on two humor titles of DC, the Inferior Five (about a team of legacy heroes who reluctantly attempt to replace their parents), and Angel and Ape (about a female detective whose partner is a talking gorilla).
Aragonés was born in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. His family fled to France for their safety, and then migrated to Mexico. He took drawing as a hobby in early childhood. He discovered that he could profit from it when classmates paid him to complete their art assignments for them. In 1954, a classmate helped Aragonés sell samples of his work to a magazine. Aragonés continued selling gag cartoons to magazines during his years as a university student.
Aragonés studied architecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He took pantomime lessons under the direction of Alejandro Jodorowsky, in hopes of applying its physical aspects of movement to his artwork. Following his graduation, he took a teaching position at the University of Mexico. In 1962, Aragonés migrated to the United States. He was already engaged to an American girl, Lilio Chomette, and he followed her when she returned to her native country.
In 1962, when he arrived in New York City, Aragonés tried to market his humorous artwork. Everyone told him to apply for a job at "Mad" magazine. He eventually did apply for that job. In 1963, he was hired by "Mad" editor Al Feldstein and publisher Bill Gaines. When the associate editor Jerry DeFuccio encouraged him to submit more material, Aragonés replied by completing 15 different story concepts in a single day. That impressed the editorial staff. Aragonés worked continuously for Mad from 1963 to 2020, only stopping because the magazine transitioned into an almost-all-reprint format. By 2002, he had written and drawn more than 12,000 gag cartoons for the magazine.
In 1967, Aragonés began writing and illustrating full stories for various DC Comics titles. He was not enthusiastic about the work-for-hire contracts which did not allow him to have creative rights over the characters which he created. In the late 1970s, he started developing the concept of Groo the Wanderer as a creator-owned series. The series made its print debut in 1982, and it has changed publishers many times since then.
Aragonés has won several comics-related awards. He won the Harvey Award Special Award for Humor in 1990, 1991,1992,1993,1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2001. In 1992, he became the first Mexican ever to win the Eisner Award. In 1996, he won the Reuben Award for his work on Mad and Groo the Wanderer. In 2024, he was inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.
