And here we go with the next one-vote-receiver in our Final ’90s Countdown:
Savage Dragon (Image Comics, 1993 – present)
Hoo boy, here’s a biggie. With Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, these are the two Image Comics launch titles (kinda sorta…more on that in a moment) still continuing today. And most amazingly, Savage Dragon‘s Erik Larsen has written and drawn all 277 issues so far (more or less) of the series.
Oh, and he also did the preceding mini-series, too. The three-issue Savage Dragon mini ran in ’92, and was the actual Image launch title, with the still-ongoing main title starting in 1993. Plus, in 1994 the Image founders switched books, so someone else wrote and drew #13 of the series…causing Larsen to later go back and produce another #13 on his own to keep his run on the book intact.
Now the comic itself…Larsen has put it through some real changes over the decade, to keep up reader interest and almost certainly to keep up his own. It starts with Mr. S. Dragon appearing naked in a burning field, no idea where he came from, step 2: ????, step 3: he becomes a policeman and the book very quickly fills with other superpowered beings that Dragon has to deal with. It’s a wild, action-packed book with Kirby-inspired but not Kirby-copying storytelliing. Guest stars abound, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Hellboy, the public domain Mickey Mouse, and [checks notes] God? Yup, God’s here too.
Without going into the details as to how things change, but change they do, to the point where the book currently revolves around Malcolm Dragon, the Dragon’s son, his wife, and their pile of little Dragon kids. Also in the last few years the, shall we say, mature audiences content dial was turned up to about a 9, and
That this comic is still being produced even today is astounding to me. Over three decades of evolution with one man maintaining the storylines…it just makes you wonder what we would have gotten if, say, Rob Liefeld started with his Youngblood #1 and just kept doing issue after issue, a new one every month or two, for 30+ years, and what we’d have at the end there. You can draw a line from where Savage Dragon started to where it ended, but its differences are definitely going to be more noticeable than its similarities.
Now, Savage Dragon has been around for a long time, with lots of spin-offs, tie-ins, spin-ins, tie-offs, the works. Lots of crossovers with other characters and franchises..I have soft spots for Savage Dragon Vs. the Savage Megaton Man and Savage Dragon/Marshal Law. Plus, there were standalone minis with the Dragon like Red Horizons. Your mileage may vary amongst the various titles.
Reprints are a trickier subject. There are inexpensive “Archives” that given you about 25 issues of the main series per volume, but they’re all in black and white. There are miscellaneous trade paperbacks in color reprinting issues from the main series. Given the low print runs on some of the later issues, this may be the only way newcomers can catch up on the comic without paying a fortune on eBay. Honestly, there are a lot of books, so you might want to check with your retailer as to what’s available.
Or you can just grab an issue and jump in, really. I mean, if you read any X-Men title, one of them was your first, and I’m betting it wasn’t #1. You can handle it.
I should also note that the Dragon’s initial appearance, in slightly altered form, was in the very small press book Graphic Fantasy, which have been reprinted in various forms. Plus, it looks like this early version, or at least the design, of the character has returned in recent years to the main series.
Anyway, Savage Dragon is hard to sum up here, but it’s nice that there’s a personal vision of a genre character that has persisted for all this time under the eye of its creator. This is certainly a rarity in the American comic book market, and something to be celebrated. Even if the comic gets a bit naughty at times.
I believe he first appeared in semi-mainstream print with the name “Savage Dragon” (as opposed to just “Dragon”) in the black and white independent comic Megaton no. 3–where he is also on the cover– published way back in 1986. I recall buying a copy at Andromeda Bookshop in SB back in the day when it came out.
Of course, the very obscure Graphic Fantasy issues predate that.
Megaton (the anthology comic series) had some nice art by the late greats Jackson Guice, and Gene Day–along with Larson and other creators. Megaton editor Gary Carlson had a good eye for up and coming talented artists. Also, along with Sabre over at Eclipse Comics, Megaton (the main character) was an early independent African American superhero and probably helped pave the way for Milestone Comics.
“It’s nice that there’s a personal vision of a genre character that has persisted for all this time under the eye of its creator. This is certainly a rarity in the American comic book market, and something to be celebrated. Even if the comic gets a bit naughty at times.”
It’s worth celebrating too that this exact same wording also applies to Adam Warren’s excellent ‘Empowered’, although Warren’s run isn’t as long as Larsen’s.
I think it’s interesting to note that Savage Dragon has run in real time, which at time has led to some weird storytelling decisions when Larson’s only put out like three issues in a year.
Having not paid very close attention to the title over the, well, decades now I guess, I didn’t realize Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon was closing in on Dave Sim’s Cerebus…
The mini was just OK, but it picked up steam after that.
My favorite era was the “Jack Kirby/Kamandi” pastich-era, but I like the early stuff and the “French Sex Comedy” oera as well. I like the current stuff, though I’ve not seen all of them, because my LCS has been unable to get them for over a year!
“There are miscellaneous trade paperbacks in color reprinting issues from the main series.”
It does look best in COLOR.
This series would’ve gotten my vote if it weren’t for BONE.
I got curious when I heard it had upped its share of adult content. I was not prepared for what I actually saw.
It’s not super graphic or anything, but there is one character who is gratuitously naked and horny most of the time.
I’m actually kind of impressed that Larsen can hold the tone of the book together given the all-ages type art is such a contrast to the amount of sex and nudity in the story.
I never read the book itself, but I did watch the cartoon as a kid as part of a block with WildCATs on USA. That makes the raunchy evolution even funnier.