Had Enough Groo Stuff?

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In the late sixties, Sergio collaborated on the creation and scripts for Bat Lash, a short-lived western comic from DC that is fondly remembered by everyone who ever read a copy. Sergio not only figured out the plots but actually figured into a couple of them. His co-writer, Denny O'Neil, decided to turn one of the characters into Sergio, and artist Nick Cardy did a masterful job of capturing a likeness. Like the real one, the comic book Sergio had superior dexterity (with a gun, not a pen), a distinctive mustache and a tendency to wind up in jail.

Not all that long ago, some folks came up with a Groo game which Sergio illustrated and which neither of us ever figured out how to play. But those who did told us it was a lot of fun.

Devout Groo fan Jason Nuttall claims that his daughter Rebecca insisted on this costume, but I'm suspicious. She was born 9/11/2002 to Jason and spouse Melissa, who promptly nicknamed her "Li'l Groo." That means the kid was around six weeks of age at Halloween — a bit too young to really know about the Groo comic book, though emotionally mature enough to work on it. But don't fear for young Rebecca. She's young. She'll have years to outgrow this traumatic childhood indignity. And if she doesn't, that's okay. She'll grow up like her dad and we can always use another reader. (Thanks, Jason...)

A few years back, Graphitti Designs put out a lovely statue of Groo finding himself waist-deep in something that was definitely not cheese dip. It was a funny little hunk of plaster and paint but what I (Mark) found even funnier was that every statue was accompanied by a "Certificate of Authenticity"...

Let us consider the underlying premise of the Certificate of Authenticity. It assumes that someone might want to produce forgeries of the Groo statue and that they would have the capability to create Groo statues that were indistinguishable from the original. That's weird enough right there, but it also presumes the following: That these cunning and expert forgers would be unable to whip up counterfeit Certificates of Authenticity...presumably because they didn't have a Kinko's in their neighborhood.