People keep asking me when there will be more Groo. I'm not sure if they're asking because they want to race to their local comic shop then or steer clear but whatever their motives, they ask. For a long time, I haven't had a real answer for them because my collaborator, Sergio Aragonés was busy with whatever he does to earn a living (I have no idea) and I was swamped with whatever it is I do (likewise). But now I have something to tell the folks who ask.
There will be more Groo on August 1. That's the release date for The Groo 25th Anniversary Special, the cover of which looks something like the above. Here's what the official solicitation says about this thing...
Celebrate twenty-five years of the world's stupidest barbarian doing stupid and barbaric things! After a brief hiatus, the Champion of Cheese Dip is back to battle the menace of "The Plague," an all-new story by the same guys responsible for all the Groo stories for the last quarter-century, Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier. Also, thrill to The Groo Alphabet, a primer of that hero's friends and foes (mostly foes), followed by a special illustrated text story by Sergio and Mark on how this comic came to be and why it just won't go away. Plus other silly features.
So there you are. More Groo. Not only that but the following month, Dark Horse Comics — the same folks bringing you the special — will release the first issue of Groo: Hell on Earth, a four-issue mini-series. And we're also starting up the reprint paperbacks again but I don't want to mention that now and scare you into thinking you may get too much Groo. But you will. Let that be a lesson to you all about being careful what you ask for. It just might be Groo.
Last week, eleven House Republicans went to the White House and, as the New York Times put it, told "...the president that conditions needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war." I don't think that little news item has gotten quite enough attention. As I noted back in this post...
What we had then, I think, was a Republican party that realized that Nixon was going down — in popularity if not in an impeachment trial — and they threw him overboard to save their own necks. Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott and I forget who the third one was — three prominent G.O.P. leaders — essentially went to the White House and told Nixon that he would not have solid Republican backing if it came to an impeachment vote and trial. Goldwater even said he was prepared to vote to convict on at least one count. That was when Nixon knew the time had come to have Pat start packing.
That was what it took then. The third messenger, by the way, was House Minority Leader John Rhodes. Hugh Scott was then the Senate Minority Leader and Barry Goldwater was, of course, kind of the Father Figure of the G.O.P. at the time.
The lesson to be learned was this: Nixon could have coped with Democratic opposition. No matter how serious the charges against him, he could always have dismissed them as partisan attacks. No matter how low his popularity went with the nation — and lately, he's about a point ahead of rectal itch — he could always keep his base by telling them it was just a Democratic smear and fear campaign. That won't work against a sizeable Republican opposition.
The thing to remember is that it isn't just eleven Republican Congressfolks. It's eleven warning him there are a lot more ready to hop off the bus. Presumably, some of those are from districts where it might be politically dangerous to oppose Bush now...but they're willing to do so before Election Day rather than lose.
Bush says he doesn't want Democrats dictating timetables to him for ending the war. Sounds to me like Republicans are doing just that.
Two weeks ago at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, I attended a panel called "The Age of Spin" on which Frank Luntz, Joe Conason, David Goodman and Michael Isikoff discussed the current political situation with John Powers acting as moderator. It wasn't the most interesting thing I've ever seen but if you want to take it in, it's on C-Span 2 later today — at 8 PM Eastern time, 5 PM Pacific time, and please remember that C-Span schedules sometimes change for no visible reason. (It's also supposed to run early tomorrow morning.) My report on the panel, written after getting home from it, is here.
You might not but I found this rather interesting. Tim Harford writes of how the Coca-Cola company (a somewhat successful enterprise, wouldn't you say?) went sixty years without raising its prices.
Dick DeBartolo has been writing for Mad Magazine since Roosevelt was president...the first Roosevelt. Here, he takes us on a tour of the offices of that esteemed publication in New York...
Okay, that was Part One. Here's Part Two. Warning: It isn't any more exciting than Part One.
The first time I visited the Mad offices was when they were at 485 Madison Avenue. (They're now on Broadway, in the building across the street from where Mr. Letterman does his show.) The first offices I saw were crummier and more cluttered, and therefore more interesting. They also had Bill Gaines in them, which made them even more interesting. That day in 1970, I met him, Al Feldstein, John Putnam, Nick Meglin, Leonard Brenner, Jerry DeFuccio and one freelance artist — Angelo Torres, who was delivering his first assignment for the publication.
That office was decorated much like the current one — with cover paintings on the walls and Mad merchandise around and such — but there were also jokes...like a pair of fake feet hanging out of a ceiling air vent. Bill's office had the famous life-size head of King Kong (sculpted by Sergio Aragonés) peeking in the window. Someone explained to me that for a long time, the Mad offices looked like ordinary offices with nothing silly or colorful around. As the magazine got more popular in the sixties, fans were trekking up there and asking for tours and such. Gaines saw the disappointment in their faces that the Mad office wasn't a wacky place so he adjusted the decor a bit. But just a bit.
May 14, 2007
