Erik Larsen is one of the original Image creators, and the only one to write and illustrate his original title since the beginning of the company to the present day.

This is an exciting time for Larsen fans, as Erik has just turned Savage Dragon's world inside out, and is hard at work on two new projects for Marvel; The Defenders, with Kurt Busiek, and The World's Greatest Comic Magazine, in which Larsen revisits the Lee and Kirby era with a slew of talented collaborators.

 --- Alan David Doane

Alan David Doane: Can you give us a progress report on The World's Greatest Comics Magazine?

Erik Larsen: (Laughs) It's progressing slowly, how about that?

ADD: How much work have you got done on it so far?

EL: Very little; it's actually--there's a skeleton plot that draws through all 12 issues, so that we know where we're starting and where we're going. and how things are progressing. The first three-and-a-half plots are fairly far along, and it's just a matter of, right now, me doing my chicken scratch thumbnails for everybody, and then deciding who's gonna go first and who's gonna go where, stuff like that. Bruce Timm has pretty much said "Hey, put me in every issue," so, that is good. Keith Giffen's the same thing. So, basically, what we're trying to do here is, for four different artists every issue...so an artist will do five or six pages, depending...

ADD: Are those going to be broken up into different story segments?

EL: I'm pretty much gonna just try and tell a story the way I would tell a story anyway, and hopefully the segments will fall in such a way that it'll work itself out. Generally, comics don't have a tendency to ramble too long anyway, so it should work itself out okay. I'm trying to really follow the template that was set by Stan (Lee) and Jack (Kirby), so it should work out all right. We'll see what happens.

ADD: Are you picking up on specific plot threads or are you just sort of trying to recreate the style of Stan and Jack?

EL: All of the above. We're going right after issue #100, World's Greatest Comic Magazine picks up directly after issue #100, so if you read #100, you can go "Oh, the Fantastic Four are leaving in an Army airplane and going back to New York. Fine. I get it." And then it'll pick up directly from there. So they're still in the airplane coming home, and wacky hijinks ensue. And really, we're just sort of looking at "Well, where is Marvel Comics at that point?" Where are all the different pieces of everything. And there'll be stuff in here that Jack never drew. Like Captain Marvel's gonna be in here, sort of the Gil Kane version of Captain Marvel at that point. Jack never drew Captain Marvel to the best of my knowledge.

ADD: Between your recent work on Thor and some of the stuff you've been doing on Savage Dragon, I guess it's pretty clear you've got this Kirby thing that you've been needing to work out.

EL: (Laughs) Dragon's not as Kirbyesque as people seem to think, and I think it's mostly because--

ADD: Having Kamandi in the first rebooted issue?

EL: I know, but it's not like suddenly there's squiggles on people, and people don't suddenly have those big Kirby knees and all that sort of stuff, it's just that the storytelling is much more conventional...I'm having Chris letter it like Mike Royer (laughs), but I would hope you wouldn't open this up and go "Wow, this is just like a Jack Kirby comic!" because, man, I'm really failing if that's...

ADD: I think it's a positive thing, because you're imparting some of the energy and creativity without seeming to rip him off. From my point of view, I think it's a successful sort of interpretation of that influence.

EL: Yeah, well...Am I exorcising my Kirby demons? Perhaps. (Laughs) But I've kind of been doing that for a long time, so...

ADD: Has the reader reaction to the Savage Dragon reboot been generally positive?

EL: There have been a lot of people that have come aboard with the reboot, and are just discovering the book for the first time, for those people, they're loving life right now, and it's kind of a cool, weird universe that they're completely unfamiliar with. Some of the people who've been reading it for a long time, this is, "Oh, cool, finally we're going off and doing something different. We've been in the same location and same whatever for quite a while now, this'll be neat." And then there's some that are like, "Captions? Thought balloons? Oh my God, you've ruined everything!" Well, whatever. (Laughs).

ADD: Why did you think it was necessary to restart it at this point?

EL: I don't think it was necessary, but it was something I wanted to do, and when I started thinking of what I hadn't done, and really the possibilities--what happened was, the character Darklord was introduced as a character who had affected history. Once I got thinking about what the ramifications are, and what it would all be, it just became so intriguing to me that I'm like "I gotta do this!" I want to explore these stories. These stories seem more interesting to me than where I had been going.

ADD: I was very intrigued by a thought balloon in the first rebooted issue, where the Dragon wondered if perhaps this isn't the first time he's changed reality. Do you plan to explore that question in the future?

EL: I'm planning on exploring damn near everything, you know? I'm trying to get to all of it. There just ends up being an awful lot. Over the course of the first 75 issues of Dragon I probably introduced 200 bad guys. If I was just to methodically reintroduce them, and not create any new characters at all, I could be up to #275 basically before I even covered everybody that's in the book already. I've just been kind of--too creative, I guess--(laughs). I've just been too busy, like, "Oh, this would be cool." Throwing things out there and not really exploring things as much as I could. I oughtta do some of that, get around to exploring, delving into a lot of the characters.

ADD: It strikes me as--I can hear the joy in your voice, describing the creative process.

EL: (Laughs).

ADD: Of the original Image creators, you seem to be the only one who's just still enjoying making funnybooks.

EL: I'm still enjoying it; I don't know that the other guys aren't enjoying it. I'm still the only guy on the same title, but really, if you look back eight years ago, I may be the only guy other than Dave Sim who's doing the same title at any company. It's been a long haul, it's been a lot of years that have gone by here. For the most part, people in the comic book industry move on after a couple of years of doing something, you know? And when I started doing this book, John Byrne was doing Next Men. Well, he's since finished doing Next Men, done Wonder Woman, come over and done Spider-Man and now he's not doing Spider-Man anymore, he's made two or three moves, and I'm still doing the same book.  And he's a guy who sticks around for a while. Other people have made five or six different jumps in the timespan that I've been doing (Dragon). It's really not just Image, it's everywhere. People just don't stay on books anymore and don't build on what they've started. I'm enjoying it a hell of a lot.

ADD: How many years do you think you have of Dragon stories to tell?

EL: However long I'm living. (Laughs).

ADD: Spoken like a committed artist.

EL: I mean, really, the idea is that this is my life's work, and I think that there may get to be a point in my life where suddenly the sales aren't to the level that they oughtta be, and the bills aren't being paid. But I don't see there being a period where I'm not gonna be doing the Dragon, that a year will go by where I won't be doing it. So, in the worst case scenario, every year there'll be a six-issue Dragon miniseries, you know? And the rest of the time I'll be randomly doing other stuff, so I can afford to do my Dragon thing.

ADD: Sounds like you're as committed as ever.

EL: Or I oughtta be (laughs).