[Groop] Baltimore Comic-Con & Personal Groo display

[Tone]

Neil,
	Unfortunately I will not be bicycling down from York, PA this year like I
did two years ago (Wow, has it already been two years, sheesh). Anyway...
114 miles round trip in one day along with the crowds of a convention are
not worth it to me unless Sergio is going to be there. No offense to Stan
of course! I am just strictly a Groo and Sergio-in-MAD fan.

Everyone,
	I have been working on my home office improvement recently. Part of that
includes some white string-LED back-lit display shelves for some of my
three dimensional Groo collectibles. The shelves were built only to show
off Groo stuff. I actually "de-valued" my Groo pin collection by
liberating them from their original plastic packaging. I freed them to
pin them all on one of my autographed 25th anniversary hats, which is
being hung on the corner of one of the shelves.
	The renovations also include an aluminum "frame-box" for lack of a better
word, which was originally a HEPA filter thrown out at my old job. As
part of repurposing the filter, yesterday I scraped and cleaned out the
insides of it, then sanded and wire-brush-Dremmeled the outside to give
it a consistent brushed-metal look. I plan to slide in some plexi-glass
inside the front then mount the whole thing on a wall as a floating
display box. The top of the box will also serve as another Groo display
shelf. Inside the "filter" box I am going to display the Groo & Rufferto
soft-sculpture my wife made for me as part of her "felting" hobby.
	However, Groo and Rufferto will not be alone in the box. Since the time
of creation from the original duo, my wife has also "felted" me another
soft sculpture of "The Minstrel"! He looks pretty awesome! He even has
little jingle bells on his hat and that utility dagger/knife on the rear
of his belt. Oh, and in true Minstrel fashion she created a new unique
ornament for the end of his musical instrument. My wife made a bicycle
for the ornament because obviously I love bicycles.
	I just have to mount it on the wall today. The only thing I am debating
is what to do for the back-drop of the soft-sculpture display box. I was
thinking I could possibly mount and display one of the smaller Groo
posters or prints I have in my collection. Although, another idea I have
is to make a simple white backdrop out of poster-board with slightly
curved edges along both sides. The white would not distract from the
sculptures and keep things a bit brighter inside the box. I was also
thinking it would be pretty cool if I actually drew a simple forest scene
using only black Sharpie marker. That would be reminiscent to Sergio's
style of cartooning and I do not think it would distract too much from
the sculptures while still allowing the white to brighten things up.

	Oh yeah... to the right of the display box I intend to mount the "Castle
Siege" poster I have in a frame. If that will not be cool enough, above
it I eventually plan to hang something non-Groo. This past winter my wife
bought me a two-sided puzzle, which is Sergio's 1980's look at sports. In
time once my wife and I actually complete the puzzle, I want to create a
two sided frame for the puzzle. I will then make an "L" shaped bracket on
a wall-mountable swivel hinge, which I will also probably have to build
myself. The end result will be a two sided puzzle displayed like a
store-front hanging sign, which I can swing left or right to position it
flat against the wall to display either side so that no one can hit their
heads. Naturally there is one side with a cartoon of bike racing on it,
so that will probably be shown off more. :)

	Any other cool ideas my fellow Groopies have for the back ground of the
display box are of course welcome, but no matter what I will certainly
share many photos of how everything turns out once it is all completed.
:)