cX: Thanks for taking a few minutes to answer our questions, Erik. What do you think is the key factor to your initial breakthrough into the world of comics?
EL: Somebody liked my samples, I suppose.
cX: What creators would you say most influenced your work, both in your writing and/or art style?
EL: Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Walt Simonson, Steve Ditko, Herb Trimpe, John Byrne, Frank Miller, Alex Toth and any number of others.
cX: You're in the midst of having the opportunity to write the last Fantastic Four Adventure as if Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had. What has that experience been like so far?
EL: Extremely frustrating but fun. I like trying an awful lot - both men have incredibly fun styles to emulate but it's no easy task.
cX: How close do you think you've come to nailing what Lee and Kirby would've done with the same premise?
EL: I'm sure it would be nothing like what we're
doing but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing. The fact of the matter
is - they didn't do it - so let's just do a kick ass funnybook! I doubt
that either of them could just sit back and do something like this - we
deliberately set out to NOT inject any NEW characters into a Stan &
Jack yarn but I can't imagine those two going 12-issues without adding
a new character or thirty. But it just seemed wrong to go - "here's a character
they would have made up." I mean, as presumptuous as it is to try and write
and draw a book in their "style" to create our own characters as if they
did it just seemed like going overboard. I find it to be an enjoyable comic
book on its own-- it fails completely to be a nearly authentic Lee/Kirby
comic but it's such a great period in comics and everything about it feels
so "right" in terms of the characters that it's a really delightful project.
Still - it's NOT like finding a few lost issues of Lee & Kirby's FF
and that's what I
hoped it would be.
cX: Any news on Dragon in Oz?
EL: It's nearly dead. If it was true to the Dragon it would offend the hell out of Oz fans and I was having trouble making both sides work.
cX: That's too bad. What about company crossovers in the works?
EL: At this point the Atomics in January and Superman/Dragon later this year. I've also been talking to Sam Kieth about doing something, but at this point we haven't quite determined what we may do yet.
cX: Any secrets or teasers you can tell us about other upcoming Savage Dragon stories?
EL: As we go on, more and more familiar faces will appear, and ultimately the readers will get all caught up (in) what happened that Dragon's not aware of. Expect to see most of Dragon's old cast over the next few months.
cX: Out of the original Image group, you're really the only one left doing work there on a regular basis. How do you feel about that?
EL: I wish it was not the case.
cX: Is there a "dream title" that you'd like to do someday?
EL: The ultimate dream book for me IS Savage Dragon. Other than that, Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel and Kamandi (at DC) are high on my list. The Incredible Hulk, Defenders, Fantastic Four and Nova at Marvel make the list - I'm pretty much living my dream here.
cX: You've gotta be one of the hardest working guys in comics. What's your secret?
EL: I don't screw off. It's not as though my hands are moving faster when I'm drawing than other artists - but I don't watch TV while I'm working - I don't take breaks to play video games - I don't sit and scratch my head for hours or have trouble figuring out the best way of laying out a page. I also don't take on anything outside of comics - I'm NOT drawing covers for magazines or video games or doing storyboards or anything else.
Not everybody follows the above. Some folks struggle with a page more than I do.
cX: How do you feel about the way Savage Dragon cartoon from a few years back depicted your characters? Do you think it translated well to the small screen?
EL: I thought it was a relatively bland cartoon. The characters were pretty watered down - they were all acting on good behavior, but they were fundamentally acurate and that was nice to see. Rita Medermade was altered the most, but many of the characters felt right at least in terms of the writing and visuals. I had some trouble with the voices - much of the animation was pretty bland in terms of style and the action was extremely toned down from the comics. I thought it showed how flexible the characters can be - it worked by those rules pretty well.
cX: Any chance we'll be seeing Savage Dragon on the silver screen?
EL: Don't hold your breath. I doubt it will ever happen. I imagine they'd screw it up. I don't want to see it screwed up.
cX: One last question and we'll let ya go. Simply out of curiosity, what happened with the new blue costume you reportedly designed for Aquaman a couple years back?
EL: The powers that be thought it would look better colored green. It didn't. We used the outfit but it looked so bad colored green that I had Aquaman ditch it in short order. What a nightmare!