[Groop] Question re: ME & Serigo working together

[Mark Evanier]

Vaughn (Home) wrote:

> Question: how did Mark and Sergio start working together?

ME: I've known Sergio since 1969 and for a long time, we kept saying, 
"We have to do something together"...but no project ever presented itself.

Just before the movie THE WIZ came out, DC Comics decided to do a fancy, 
deluxe magazine that would adapt the movie into comic form.  Len Wein 
was going to write it and Sergio was going to draw it...but then Len 
fell way behind on work and a new writer had to be found.  Sergio asked 
for me and I was hired.  I was just finished writing it when Sergio had 
an unrelated business dispute with DC and announced he would never work 
for them again until they changed certain policies.  (Which they changed 
  but not for 15 or so years.)  Anyway, Dan Spiegle wound up drawing the 
adaptation of THE WIZ but before he finished, DC heard that the movie 
was going to bomb so they cancelled the whole project.

That was the first time Sergio and I *almost* worked together.

A few years later, Sergio was doing a strip for SOJOURN Magazine called 
T.C. MARS.  He plotted, drew it and lettered it, and a writer we both 
knew named Don Rico did the dialogue.  One day, I told Sergio that his 
lettering wasn't very good and I wound up lettering the next installment 
of T.C. MARS for him.  That was the first time we worked together, I guess.

Sergio wasn't completely happy with Don as his dialogue writer so when 
the GROO project came along, he asked me to do it.  The first GROO story 
that had real dialogue in it was the first thing we did together.