Art and Story by: Erik Larsen
Published By: Image Comics
Savage Dragon has come a long way from those early issues, years later we’ve reached the major milestone of #200 and Eric Larsen celebrates it with a giant 100 page issue.The book opens with the next installment of Save Dragon, a tongue in cheek tale with some explosive bouts of brutal violence thrown in – mixed with some moderate awkwardness for Malcolm Dragon. As a lead off segment, it works well. Eric lays down a decently paced story with enough to keep you entertained, but after such a run in the business you would be disappointed if that wasn’t the case. In the hurry to fulfil the requisite pages on schedule, it seems the artist element of the book wasn’t as ‘on point’ as they typically are. Some of the anatomy (especially of Malcolm Dragon) and composition, is off in a number of panels, which is below the usual standard expected for this book.
Once the first part of the book closes, we have a drop off in terms of the content. There are more instances of Dragon action in the remaining pages of the book, yet the overall impression is of that
dreaded comic book element: “filler”. Issuing a 100 page book gives you the chance to break out of the constraints of a 22 page story, it gives you extra scope to lay down something out of the ordinary. While there are some good elements, the opening story is workable, the Vanguard story that closes the book is a gem, and the humour is always worthwhile from Eric. Unfortunately, not everything in this issue is of that standard, nor do the varied elements gel together into a compelling issue worth of material. There is no doubting the ability of Eric, nor should we discount the ambition of pulling together 100 pages inside the time frame that this book has, but the overall feel for this issue is that they’ve mashed together for the sake of filling the pages. While some parts of this issue don’t rise to the occasion, it is worth remembering that this title has hit the big 200. With any luck Mr Larsen will be on hand to celebrate the Savage Dragon at #300!
