New member introduction

[DavidStallard@cs.com]

Hi all,

I just joined the groop and thought I'd drop a message about myself and also 
ask a couple questions.

My first issue of Groo was either #4 or #8 (Epic), I can't remember which.  I 
collected Groo steadily until around #40, and I also went back and got the 
earlier Epic issues I was missing.  At that point I dropped comics 
completely, so Groo was one of many casualties.  Every now and then I would 
get curious about comics again so I would wander into a shop and pick up a 
couple issues...thus, I got #98 and a couple other high-numbered issues from 
Epic's run.  I completely missed the Image run, though.  Then a year or two 
ago I got back into comics in a big way (and still am), so I started picking 
up all the Groo minis from Dark Horse as they came out.  Also, I went on Ebay 
and bought a big lot of Groo books so that now I have almost all of the Epic 
run, although I haven't read that big lot yet.  So basically my knowledge of 
Groo is from the early days of Epic, and then the Dark Horse minis.  Big 
gap....  Oh yeah, I also have the Groo card game and its expansion.

I wasn't all that crazy about the mini where Rufferto is teleported to modern 
times.  But this current series (Mightier Than the Sword) is great 
stuff...full of gags that remind me why I got hooked on Groo in the first 
place.  I don't know how the rest of the list feels about this, but I sure 
wish Groo was a regular monthly book again instead of these sporatic 4-issue 
miniseries.

Anyway, I guess I only have one question for now:  Are Mark and Sergio still 
hiding secret messages in issues of Groo?  Back in the early days of Epic, 
every issue used to have a secret message.  I was terrible at finding them, 
though--with most of them, I had to wait until they revealed the secrets in a 
later letters page.  Anyway, my memory is fuzzy but I seem to remember that 
after a while they decided to stop doing secret messages.  However, in issue 
#2 of Mightier Than the Sword there is some small cryptic writing at the 
bottom of a couple pages (one of them is the last page of one of the 
chapters...I don't have my copy with me to be more specific).  I can't figure 
out what those words are for, unless they are a hint to a secret message.  
Thanks!