Гру, Странник: История комикса и его создатели

Groo the Wanderer is a fantasy/comedy comic book character created by Sergio Aragonés. His stories are written and drawn by Aragonés, dialogued and edited by Mark Evanier, lettered by Stan Sakai and colored by Tom Luth. Over the years, Groo has been published by Pacific Comics, Eclipse Comics (one special issue), Marvel Comics (under its Epic imprint), Image Comics and Dark Horse Comics. Groo was among the first widely successful creator owned comics creations, one of the few successful humorous series in the United States (outside Archie Comics), and is one of the longest running collaborations in comic book history. In 2011 IGN ranked Groo 100th in the "Top 100 comic books heroes".

Groo's adventures take place in an environment that generally resembles Medieval Europe, although his travels have also taken him to places that resemble Africa, Indonesia, Japan, the Middle East, and elsewhere. In addition to regular flora and fauna, dragons and other legendary creatures occasionally appear, and several cultures use dinosaur like creatures as beasts of burden. Over the years, Groo has also encountered several "non human" cultures such as the Kalelis and the Drazil. The currency in Groo's world is usually the Kopin. Although many technologies and peoples in Groo appear ancient, more modern innovations such as the printing press can be found as well.

Groo is initially plotted and drawn by Sergio Aragonés, and Mark Evanier then writes the dialog. Sakai then does the lettering, after which Aragonés does the final artwork, including the word balloons. Finally, Luth does the coloring. Evanier also answers the letters page, something he takes special pride in, since the practice in mainstream comics is to pass this task off to low level assistants, something he did not know when his own letters as a teenage fan were published. He claims that no one knows what he does. His official credit, during the Marvel/Epic run, was usually a polysyllabic title that changed every issue (examples from the first eight issues of volume 2: Interpreter, Interlocutor, Cryptographer, Amanuensis, Construer, Verbalizer, Articulator, Scholiast). His actual function, as revealed at the end of issue #6 of volume 2, was to interpret Aragones's broken English storytelling to write the dialog. Caricatures of Aragonés, Evanier, Sakai, and Luth often appear as background characters within the stories, sometimes with family members. Evanier and Sakai are also the role models for the characters Weaver and Scribe. Rufferto was based on Aragonés's own dog named Rufferto, who is actually more mottled than spotted.

Starting with issue #87 of Marvel's ongoing Groo series, issues of Groo ended with a wordless one page gag involving Groo's dog Rufferto. When the Groo comic went to Image and Dark Horse comics, these one page Rufferto stories continued. In one instance (Groo issue #9 from Image Comics) Rufferto's brother Arfetto replaced Rufferto as the star of the backup story. In all, 93 of these Rufferto one page stories were printed.

Aragonés created the character of Groo in the late 1970s. At that time no comic book company would allow creators to retain the rights to their characters, and Aragonés did not wish to surrender those rights. In 1981, a comic book, Destroyer Duck #1, was published by Eclipse Comics as a benefit to raise money for a legal battle over creator rights; a four page story contributed by Aragonés featured Groo's first published appearance. A few months later, Groo appeared in a two page preview ad and the back cover art in Starslayer #4, published by Pacific Comics. The second Groo story appearance was in a five page backup story in Starslayer #5. In 1982, Pacific Comics began publishing Groo the Wanderer as a regular series. Pacific faced various financial difficulties and was only able to publish eight issues of the title. With Pacific unable to publish new material, a one shot issue of material that was originally written for them (titled the Groo Special) was instead published by Eclipse. When Groo was published by Pacific, he was not portrayed as a bumbling idiot. In fact, one issue had him use his brains to create sophisticated traps and his speech was similar to Conan the Barbarian's. Aragonés and Evanier eventually negotiated a deal with Epic Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics, for that company to take care of publication while preserving creator rights. This resulted in the longest run of Groo the Wanderer with 120 issues. In 1994, with Marvel facing financial difficulties, the title switched to Image Comics and was retitled Groo. In the first issue Groo remarks "the marvels of the world are but images before me". When Image in turn faced legal problems after publishing twelve issues, the title switched to Dark Horse Comics in 1998. Dark Horse did not publish the title as a regular series, but periodically released new material and reprints as miniseries and collections. At the 2007 WonderCon, the creators revealed that since 2005 they had been trying to produce a Groo/Conan crossover (both titles are published by Dark Horse). The project encountered a number of postponements; although two issues had been completed by the spring of 2011, the series was further delayed because of a backache suffered by Aragonés. The book finally saw print in July 2014, with Aragonés and writer Mark Evanier working with artist Thomas Yeates, who drew the Conan portions of the book.

The character of the Groosalugg in the TV series Angel is generally called "Groo" by other characters, and is a somewhat naïve wandering barbarian hero who is a highly skilled swordsman. In Norway, the magazine Pyton once parodied the comic by placing the Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland in the role of Groo, as a pun on her name. Also in Norway, when the local version of Mad magazine ran a parody of Ronia, the Robber's Daughter, the "gray dwarves" pestering Ronia had become "Groo dwarves".

Sergio Aragonés received the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for 1996 for his work on Groo and Mad magazine. In 2009, Groo: Hell on Earth was nominated for the Eisner Award for Best Limited Series. The comic protagonist of the same name has also received positive reviews. Wizard ranked him as the 135th greatest comic book character of all time, while IGN ranked Groo as the 100th greatest comic book hero of all time stating that "while he may not be the brightest bulb on the battlefield, Groo is an earnest and kind hearted adventurer whose travels are never short on laughs and adventure".