Sergio Aragones
-
Anime
Convention Personality of the Week - January 13, 2008
Sometimes, the author of this
site steps outside the unwritten rules for selecting these
personalities. Sergio Aragones is a personal favorite of the author's,
and while Aragones has few links to anime or manga, he has a collection
of accomplishments beyond all but a handful of creators in the American
comics business. He also has close links to a previous personality, Usagi
Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai. Between drawing episodes of Usagi, the
wandering ronin bunny, Sakai has lettered the word balloons of
Aragones' long-running series, Groo the Wanderer. But Aragones'
fame comes from his decades of work on another, more influential work, Mad
Magazine, that started its memorable black-and-white run in the
1960's. Much of Mad's barely-inhibited spirit came from the drawings in
in each issue's margins, throwaway space in most magazines that served
Mad as a way to pack the book with more jokes. After he came to the
U.S. from Spain, Aragones started creating the "drawn-out dramas" for Mad
in 1963, and he never stopped. Those big hands of Aragones' have
created the small art that has appeared in every Mad issue
except one since John F. Kennedy was President, among the longest runs
that any artist has had with any publication. Some of the grandparents
of the newest generation of anime fans were still young when Aragones
started the American art career that shows no sign of stopping.
Sometimes, the author of this
site steps outside the unwritten rules for selecting these
personalities. Sergio Aragones is a personal favorite of the author's,
and while Aragones has few links to anime or manga, he has a collection
of accomplishments beyond all but a handful of creators in the American
comics business. He also has close links to a previous personality, Usagi
Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai. Between drawing episodes of Usagi, the
wandering ronin bunny, Sakai has lettered the word balloons of
Aragones' long-running series, Groo the Wanderer. But Aragones'
fame comes from his decades of work on another, more influential work, Mad
Magazine, that started its memorable black-and-white run in the
1960's. Much of Mad's barely-inhibited spirit came from the drawings in
in each issue's margins, throwaway space in most magazines that served
Mad as a way to pack the book with more jokes. After he came to the
U.S. from Spain, Aragones started creating the "drawn-out dramas" for Mad
in 1963, and he never stopped. Those big hands of Aragones' have
created the small art that has appeared in every Mad issue
except one since John F. Kennedy was President, among the longest runs
that any artist has had with any publication. Some of the grandparents
of the newest generation of anime fans were still young when Aragones
started the American art career that shows no sign of stopping. 