Posted By Dan Greenfield on Sep 6, 2024 | 2 comments

The “fastest cartoonist in the world” was born 87 years ago, on Sept. 6, 1937…

By PAUL KUPPERBERG

Who doesn’t love Sergio Aragonés? Even people who have never met Sergio Aragonés love Sergio Aragonés. It wouldn’t surprise me if “Sergio Aragonés” didn’t translate from Spanish into English as “bringer of joy.” (I really wouldn’t be surprised; I flunked Level 1 Spanish for seven years straight through high school and college.) His work is might be more widely known by the general public than his name thanks to his 57 years contributing to the pages—well, mostly the margins—of MAD Magazine and his animated segments on Dick Clark’s TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes on ABC in the 1980s (not to mention as his own preserved head in a 2010 episode of Futurama), but among his peers, Sergio is mostly known as one of the funniest and best people in the business.

I met Sergio as a fan in early 1972. I seem to recall being present when he sat down to draw the poster for promoter Phil Seuling’s upcoming New York Comic Art Convention, possibly at Phil’s house in Seagate, the gated Coney Island community where he lived and from where he ran his mail-order comic book business. It could be a false memory or me conflating that incredible poster populated with the figures of hundreds of comicon regulars, from professionals on panels to eager fans seeking autographs to cosplayers to art displays and huckster’s tables.

It’s a breathtaking accomplishment, to me the most Sergio of anything Sergio’s ever done, a master class in cartooning, a copy of which I had hanging on my bedroom door for years and would regularly study, but in this memory, I watched Sergio create it, free hand, all the while chatting and joking, in under an hour. Again, I don’t know if I’m remembering it correctly, but the thing is, even if I wasn’t there, I’ve no doubt that Sergio is so fast, so funny, he probably could have drawn this 22” x 30” beauty that quickly without breaking a sweat. When he signed my program book at the ’72 show, he made a quick scribble on the page that I thought was just going to be his name but proved to be a little smiling self-caricature of the artist holding the pen with which he’s signing his name.  (The original art of the comicon poster will be up for sale later this month at Heritage Auctions.)

Sergio has filled an untold number of comic book pages with his art and writing, including for DC’s Plop!, House of Secrets, and Fanboy; The Mighty Magnor (Malibu); Louder Than Words (Dark Horse); Sergio Aragonés Massacres the Marvel Universe; Sergio Aragonés Funnies (Bongo Comics); and of course, something like 150 issues of his barbarian spoof with Mark Evanier, Groo the Wanderer.

In 1996, I invited Sergio to contribute a pin-up to a Wonder Woman gallery I was assembling. His contribution was a lovely post-slugfest moment featuring a fierce Diana with two dozen or so well-beaten foes that arrived safely via FedEx but without a payment voucher included. I called Sergio to remind him to send that along and it arrived a few days later, accompanied by a quick thank you sketch from the artist that has hung on my wall ever since.

Sergio also did (does) a lot of work you may not be aware of in advertising and magazines, which brings us to the subject of this column: Sergio Aragonés’ full page Weird Picture Search for Weekly World News, a regular feature in the fake news tabloid from 2005 to 2007. Each week, Sergio would create a new “Where’s Waldo”-like scene crammed full of tiny, funny figures in typical Aragonés style with a common theme and 10 hidden objects for the reader to find. I was an editor on WWN from early 2006 to the bitter end in August 2007 and we never knew what Sergio was going to send us, but hilarity always ensued because it takes a big man like Sergio Aragonés to make all those tiny little drawings so funny.

Here then, My 13 Favorite Sergio Aragonés Weekly World News Weird Picture Searches, in no special order:

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Jan. 1, 2007

Feb. 19, 2007

March 10, 2006

March 26, 2007

May 29, 2006

June 11, 2007

July 2, 2007

August 7, 2006

August 14, 2006

Sept. 4, 2006

Nov. 20, 2006

Nov. 27, 2006

Dec. 25, 2006

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MORE

— 13 GROO-tiful Images: A SERGIO ARAGONES Birthday Celebration. Click here.

— PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite WEEKLY WORLD NEWS Stories. Click here.

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PAUL KUPPERBERG was a Silver Age fan who grew up to become a Bronze Age comic book creator, writer of Superman, the Doom Patrol, and Green Lantern, creator of Arion Lord of Atlantis, Checkmate, and Takion, and slayer of Aquababy, Archie, and Vigilante. He is the Harvey and Eisner Award nominated writer of Archie Comics’ Life with Archie, and his YA novel Kevin was nominated for a GLAAD media award and won a Scribe Award from the IAMTW. Check out his new memoir, Panel by Panel: My Comic Book Life. 

Website: https://www.paulkupperberg.net/

Shop: https://www.paulkupperberg.net/shop-1