A Right Angled Artin Group (RAAG) encodes the edge set of a graph via commutativity relations on its generators. In this talk, I will explore the depths of these deceptively easily-defined groups by using techniques from geometric group theory to recognize when a RAAG has a surface's homotopy group as a subgroup. I will also show how to solve the word problem of RAAGs. In the end of the talk, I will outline current research by Jon McCammond which is attempting to generalize these techniques to Artin and Coxeter groups.