Twisted Savage Dragon Funnies - Michael Fiffe (ed.)
Image Comics, $18.99, 978-1-60706-402-2
Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon is probably the epitome of ’90s Image Comics excess, even moreso than Todd Macfarlane’s ridiculous Spawn or any of the cookie-cutter superteams by former marvel hot-shots. No, those guys were just (badly) drawing what they could, and taking themselves incredibly seriously, with a combination of hype and dumb luck somehow giving credence to what they did. But Larsen’s Dragon was different, with his purposely exaggerated anatomy and patently ridiculous origin (both on and off the page — the story goes that this was a character wee Erik came up with when he was 12) it always seemed like he was just having a laugh and riding the stylistic crapwave with glee. There was no way that placing a giant green man with a fin of his head in “mature” situations like custody battles, and fighting thinly-veiled parodies of other comics could be anything other than ironic.
So, it’s perfectly fitting that now, after the success of DC’s Bizarro Comics and Marvel’s Strange Tales, that Larsen opens himself to parody in Twisted Savage Dragon Funnies — short strips by indie creators that originally ran as back-up features in the monthly Savage Dragon comic.
The typical conceit of the strips is not too far removed from Larsen’s own, placing the green-skinned hero in a variety of genre situations from Ben Marra’s galactic space opera to Vito Delsante and Rachel Freire’s Russ Meyer homage. Each one derives a good deal of its humour from Dragon’s appearance being completely at odds with his surroundings, or the absurdity of some of his rogue’s gallery (the man with a head that looks like a cross between a chicken and Bart Simpson seems to be a particular favourite). But it’s not quite as cynical as you’d expect and many of the young, hip cartoonists seem to have an affection for the Dragon, happily taking from his tangled continuity and obscure characters.
Kat Roberts’s loving take on Angel and Mr. Glum (a young girl and a pint-sized, petulant alien) is one of the stand-out stories in here. The strange disconnect between the two is played to full effect with the cute charms of Angel bristling against Glum’s Napoleon complex and impotent rage. Yet, the result is quite tender and Roberts pastel-tinted art beautifully captures the tone.
If there’s one constant among the work, it’s that the artists are obviously enjoying the hell out of drawing Larsen’s creations with Dieter VDO’s demented low-brow art being the only real “off-model” tale. Even Larsen himself gets in on the action in the finale, drawing the bookend pages on a tale with Dragon quantum-leaping through different realities, all drawn by different creators. So, we’re also treated to 2000 A.D.’s Simon Fraser turning in a fantastic Dredd tribute, George O’Connor’s medieval Dragon and Mike Cavallaro’s female superhero (who’s introduced while roughing up a clam…).
Michael Fiffe should be commended for managing to wrangle together such a diverse and fresh assortment of talent to work on these shorts, especially small press talents like Zack Soto whose work deserves to seen by a wider audience.
Let’s just hope that a few years down the line, there are no legal battles over any of the new characters created in here.
-- Gavin Lees
2 comments:
Image has, for many, become a guilty pleasure. It has its reputation from the early '90s to live down. What bothers me more than dogging the past--is the mind-reading, which often accompanies that. "Taking themselves incredibly seriously?" Really? THat's what you got from our beginning years? Not youthful enthusiasm or naiveté or seven lads taking an exuberant leap of faith--but "taking themselves incredibly seriously?"
Clearly somebody wasn't paying attention.
I think of the early Image Comics as being somewhat akin to the early Golden Age comics. It's a bunch of books thrown together by a group of guys who really haven't quite figured out how to make comics and what they're doing. There are flashes of brilliance and plenty of crashing and burning but there was a genuine energy there--genuine excitement being created before the readers' eyes. Yeah, there are some dreadful books in there--but there's a lot of fun in there--and it was a time of great creativity and experimentation and chaos. It was a fun time to be creating comics. And nobody I knew was "taking themselves incredibly seriously."
I dunno, Erik, going back and re-reading those comics now, I get a sense of guys who had been getting paid an awful lot of money and now were branching out into work that they felt had to be "serious" and "mature". Like I said above, I think yours was the only one that really had that sense of fun and energy, not bogged-down by style or having to prove itself in the "real world".
Thanks for coming and commenting -- it's nice to be set right by guys who were there, rather than indignant fanboys.
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