Sergio Aragonés
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sergio Aragonés Domenech (born 1937) is a cartoonist and writer probably best-known for his contributions to Mad Magazine.
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[edit] Biography
Born in Spain, Aragonés had a passion for art since early childhood. As one anecdote goes, Aragonés was once left alone in a room by his parents with a box of crayons. His parents returned sometime later to find that he had covered the wall in hundreds upon hundreds of drawings.
Aragonés emigrated with his family due to the Spanish Civil War and settled in Mexico. He made his first professional sale in 1954 but continued to doodle humorous cartoons while studying architecture at the University of Mexico, and also learning pantomime under the direction of Alexandro Jodorowsky. In 1962, Aragonés moved to the United States. He currently resides and works in Ojai, California.
Aragonés first came to the U.S. in 1962. According to the artist, he arrived in New York with nothing but 20 dollars and his portfolio of drawings. After working odd jobs around the city, Aragonés went to Mad Magazine's offices in Madison Avenue hoping to sell some of his cartoons. Since his knowledge of English wasn't very extensive, he asked for the only Mad artist he knew of that spoke his language, Cuban-born artist Antonio Prohias, creator of the popular Spy vs. Spy. Aragonés hoped Prohias could serve as a translator between him and the Mad editors. According to Aragonés, this proved to be a mistake, since Prohias knew even less English than he. Prohias did receive Aragonés very enthusiastically and, with difficulty, introduced the young artist to the Mad editors as his "brother."[1] Mad publisher Bill Gaines liked what he saw, and Aragonés became a contributor to the magazine in 1963.
Aragonés became famous for his wordless "drawn-out dramas" or "marginals" appearing in the margins and between panels of the magazine, both horizontally and vertically as well as occasionally around corners. Prior to Aragonés' work for Mad, the marginals had been text jokes and were titled "Marginal Thinking." According to Aragonés the staff of Mad enjoyed his marginals, but expected him to only last one or two issues. They did not expect him to be able to maintain the steady stream of small cartoons needed for each issue.[2] (He is a very prolific artist; Al Jaffee once said, "Sergio has, quite literally, drawn more cartoons on napkins in restaurants than most cartoonists draw in their entire careers." [3] Aragonés has provided marginals for every issue of Mad since 1963 excepting one (his contributions to that issue were lost by the Post Office). In addition, he has a feature section in the current issues called "A Mad Look At....". As of early 2007, Aragonés's work has appeared in 400 issues of Mad, second only to Al Jaffee.[4]
In 1967 he began illustrating full stories for DC Comics under such titles as Plop!. He also wrote or plotted stories that were illustrated by other artists, including the Western series Bat Lash and stories for various horror anthology titles. Aragonés claims that he originally looked for work in the comic book industry and was warned off. He was told that he would be better paid working for Mad Magazine.
In the 1980s he created the humorous barbarian comic book Groo the Wanderer (so named because he sought a name which meant nothing in any language) with Mark Evanier. Evanier's role originally was as something of a translator, as Aragones was still somewhat shaky at expressing his ideas in English. Eventually the two began collaborating on story ideas, and there have been several Groo stories in which Evanier is credited as the sole writer. Aragones is currently fluent in English. The other regular contributors to the book are letterer Stan Sakai (himself the creator/artist of the equally famous Usagi Yojimbo), and colorist Tom Luth. As a creator-owned book, Groo has survived the bankruptcy of a number of publishers, a fact which led to the popular joke that publishing the series was a precursor to a publisher's demise. The book was initially published by Pacific Comics, briefly by Eclipse Comics, then Marvel Comics under their since-discontinued Epic Comics imprint, then Image Comics, and currently Dark Horse Comics.
Sergio Aragonés is also the author of a book of cartoons entitled Madly Yours.
Aragonés has written and drawn many other comic books, including:
- Actions Speak is a series of humorous comics without any dialogue.
- Fanboy studies comics and society's reaction to comics from the point of view of a self-described "fanboy".
- Boogeyman is a series of generally humorous horror stories.
- Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel and Sergio Aragonés Destroys DC - Aragonés's comical interpretation of the superheroes of both Marvel and DC.
- Solo - The eleventh issue of this DC Comics artist anthology series features various stories written and illustrated by Aragonés, some biographical, and a Batman story written by Evanier.
His work can be found in other compilations, including The Big Book of the Weird, Wild West, in which Aragonés illustrates a retelling of the Donner Party incident. He also designed the animation used for many years on the Dick Clark Bloopers programs.
[edit] Awards
Aragonés's work has won him several awards. He has won Shazam Awards for Best Inker (Humor Division) in 1972 for his work on Mad Magazine, and for Best Humor Story in 1972 for "The Poster Plague" from House of Mystery #202 (with Steve Skeates). He won the Harvey Award Special Award for Humor in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2001. He received the National Cartoonist Society Comic Book Award for 1986, their Humor Comic Book Award for 1973, 1974, and 1976, their Magazine and Book Illustration Award for 1989, their Special Features Award for 1977, their Gag Cartoon Award for 1983, and their Reuben Award in 1996 for his work on Mad and Groo the Wanderer. In 2003 he was awarded La Plumilla de Plata (The silver inkpen) in Mexico.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Aragonés, Sergio (2007). Biography (English). Retrieved on 2007-03-18.
- ^ Evanier, Mark (2007-03-17). One More Honor For Sergio (English). news from me. Retrieved on 2007-03-18.
- ^ (Evanier, 128-129)
- ^ Slaubaugh, Mike (2007-03-16). Mad Magazine Contributor Appearances (English). Retrieved on 2007-03-18.
[edit] References
- Evanier, Mark, Mad Art, Watson Guptil Publications, 2002, ISBN 0823030806
[edit] External links
| Contributors to Mad "The Usual Gang of Idiots" |
| Editors |
|---|
| Jerry DeFuccio | Al Feldstein | John Ficarra | Harvey Kurtzman | Nick Meglin |
| Writers |
| Anthony Barbieri | Dick DeBartolo | Desmond Devlin | Stan Hart | Frank Jacobs | Tom Koch | Arnie Kogen | Barry Leibmann | Jay Lynch | Andrew J. Schwartzberg | Larry Siegel | Lou Silverstone | Mike Snider |
| Writer-Artists |
| Sergio Aragonés | Dave Berg | John Caldwell | Don Edwing | Al Jaffee | Don Martin | Paul Peter Porges | Antonio Prohías |
| Artists |
| Tom Bunk | Bob Clarke | Paul Coker, Jr. | Jack Davis | Mort Drucker | Will Elder | Drew Friedman | Bernard Krigstein | Peter Kuper | Hermann Mejia | Norman Mingo | Tom Richmond | Jack Rickard | John Severin | Angelo Torres | Rick Tulka | Sam Viviano | Basil Wolverton | Monte Wolverton | Wally Wood | George Woodbridge | Bill Wray |
| Photographers |
| Irving Schild |
| Related articles |
| Mad Magazine | William M. Gaines |
