Take a trip down the rabbit hole with Matt Sirois and Paul Kien as they discuss DC Super Stars #13 – The Wild and Wacky World of Sergio Aragones! Listen as they talk about the stories told by Cain, Abel and Eve to the denizens of Wonderland! It’s a little Mad and a lot of Plop!
This month’s instocktrades.com selections:
https://www.instocktrades.com/products/nov231013/groo-in-wild-tp
https://www.instocktrades.com/products/aug241214/space-circus-hc
Check out Matt’s show:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tv-movie-rewind/id1549785224
Creator Links:
https://www.mikesamazingworld.com/main/features/creator.php?creatorid=887
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Aragon%C3%A9s
https://sergioaragones.com/about-sergio/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Skeates
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“Cloud Dancer ” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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I met Sergio twice. The first time I gave him my first mini comic
a year later he says “hey Rob! Loved your comic!
Great show .
Looking at Sergio’s art style .
It does to fit well in that Alice and wonder land type world . Where there all a little “MAD” pun intended.
Here’s a secret question for if you could meet Sergio and have him do drawing for who would be maybe Cain or batlash . Or something else and where you hang it ?
Another informative and interesting cast. Never knew that Sergio “did” DC – but always liked his stuff in Mad. Only one more Calculator? That’s too bad… What are you and Sean moving onto from there? I bet you could have some fun with odd-ball Batman team ups… like the two Batman Kamandi team ups? Anyway – can’t wait until your Super-Heros vs. Gorillas… I happen to have that issue – going to read it this week to get ready!
Thank you Paul for having me as a guest, and editing the episode so well that I actually sound articulate and intelligent!
I love Aragones’ work, always have. So fun that DC would turn over a whole issue just to him.
I liked PLOP a lot, even though it had been cancelled before I got to it. It was interesting that the horror hosts, of all characters, were so often grafted into humor stories. Maybe if DC had done more superhero-centric stories in Plop the book would have lasted longer? Marvel was never shy about goofing on their heroes, but DC always seemed a little more reticent. Would have loved to see Sergio draw Aquaman!
My Sergio story: one year in the late 90s I went to the Mid Ohio Comic Con where he was a guest. I was at the hotel and got on the elevator, one of those glass enclosed ones that looked out over the center of the building. On the elevator? Sergio! I knew what he looked like and recognized him immediately. A little kid and his parents got on, he was maybe 9 or 10 and was excited about the elevator ride.
He started jumping up and down by the thrill of it all, and Sergio laughed and joined him–this hulking middle aged man jumping up and down like a little kid. I thought to myself, “Yep, that tracks.”
Re: Calculator–it would have been funny if Hawkman, after listing all the heroes the Calculator had been fighting, said, “…the next logical hero for him to take on is, of course,..Red Tornado!” Cue a lot of awkward silence from the other JLAers.
Great having Matt on the show!
It was great being on the show! Sergio is certainly a creator I would love to meet. He seems like such a fun guy.
Excellent show! In my opinion, Aragones can never get enough love and attention. The guy’s a friggin’ national – no, scratch that, global treasure. And a great discussion gentlemen.
By the way, on the Calculator story, you have the Star City Stars, and the Gotham City Giants?! C’mon, man! Gotham City Goths was right there!!
Does that mean the Coast City team are the Coasters and always holding everyone’s beer? 😀
Without a doubt.
When you announced this episode I didn’t realise I had this issue, but seeing the cover, yes I bought it at the time, probably because I was a fan of Plop (Ryan and I covered Steve Skeates and Berni Wrightson’s The Gourmet from Plop! #1 on this very network’s Midnight, the Podcasting Hour back in 2017).
So far as Cain’s Gargoyles go, I think Matt is correct, it’s three separate gags, not one strip – different people.
Great to hear another Calculator double bill. I also love the musical Take Me Out To The Ball Game, which is what you called this story, it’s actually ‘Take Me Out OF the Ball Game’. No, don’t thank me, the reference remains.
The Hawkman art really is great but that big ‘Free’ sound effect when our hero escape his trap is a bit cheesy.
Wonderful show, gents!
Sergio may have been the first comics pro I met at little con years ago got a bunch of things signed by him. I do think Groo is underrated though, possibly because it’s more for fans like us than the general public like his Mad work.
I think a couple of those Calculator stories might have been rushed. the Black Canary one was unbelieveable even for a superhero story. and I think Bob Rozakis missed a trick not having the Elongated Man pitch Bugs Bunny style in the Green Arrow team up.
I don’t know why, but I thought the Whammy on the game show “Press Your Luck was an Aragones creation. If anything, the creators had to have been influenced by Aragones.
I’ve been loving the Calculator recaps, guys! It was around this time that I really got into DCs. Maybe it’s me, but at the time it seems like serialized story arcs like this were not the norm for DC. I’m talking about something more than a 2- or 3-parter. There had been the GL/GA “Hard Traveling Heroes”, Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, Goodwin/Simonson’s Manhunter, and soon after this the Englehart/Rogers run in Detective and Englehart’s run in JLA. Those were centered around the heroes,, while this was centered around multiple heroes fighting a common villain. Props to DC for experimenting like this, and to Bob Rozakis for delivering.
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, Paul and Matt, and not just because I’m excited about the next one! Again, to be honest, I don’t think I would have bought this comic if I saw it on the spinner rack all those years ago. I love Sergio Aragones and read MAD at some point in my comic reading life, but I always thought of him as the “funny cartoons in the margin” guy as opposed to the artists who drew my “serious” super-hero comics. I loved the recap of the stories in this special. I just assumed it was a book of one page gags made up of three panels like the cover. I must also confess that I was always a little freaked out by the covers on Plop, so I don’t think I would have picked them up either. I’ve enjoyed Groo when I’ve read it, but I really LOVED the Sergio Massacres Marvel and Sergio Destroys DC one-shots he did. And Fanboy! Sigh. I’m so predictable in my comic book reading. Once again, thanks for another fun episode!
Impressive podcast most impressive. Ah Sergio. I like his work. Though I never read groe, I started with Mad some of the Fan Boy comic. And I think he did the cartoon bits on The Ed McMan and Dick Clark bloopers and practical jokes show. Him doing Cain and Able is funny.
And works well for his style. Most of these bits are pretty good. The pipe line story being real funny. Not a fan of the elephant and the clown. Just Oy Vey. Eve joining Cain and Able was fun. The shrunk scientist and his wife was interesting. Ah the next part of the calculator Saga continues. Not a bad part was cool to hear Shawn on the pod cast again as well as the other guest from the Sergio stories .
Other than the time I created a fan fic ware I had Mary ” Zed” Martin, Enchantress, madameXanadue with Cain as there secretary. And. Irving, the gargoyle sitting next to his desk. It was an odd fab girl moment I had. Anyway can’t wait for the next podcast.
Truly fun episode. Aragones is a legend. I can’t picture Mad Magazine and not think of his work.
The elephant story made me think of the famous outtake from The Carol Burnett Show where, during a Mama’s Family skit, Tim Conway tells the story about conjoined elephants that make the entire cast fall over laughing.
Its been many years since I’ve read an issue of Mad. Sergio was always one of my favorites. The comment was made that Sergio spent so much time at the office, Bill Gains allowed him to sleep there, and nobody else would allow that. Well, according to an article Jim Shooter wrote for the Overstreet Price Guide, it happened at Marvel too.
Shooter noted how he was interviewing at Marvel after he had left DC. He was about to turn down their offer, because he couldn’t afford to live in New York. That’s when Stan Lee told him that many of Marvel’s young artists and writers were actually, unofficially, sleeping at the offices overnight. Lee noted that was actually what he was referring to as the “Marvel Bullpen”.
That may also explain the hyper continuity of early Marvel comics, since these guys not only worked together, but also lived together. And we all know what happens when geeks get together to discuss comics.