Books like Savage Dragon Archives, Vol. 1

If there was a unifying theme amongst the set of books launched by Image’s founders in the early 1990s, it was a wanton disregard for the particulars of gross anatomy. Larsen isn’t quite Rob Liefeld-bad when it comes to depicting the human form (he does, by and large, at least believe that feet are a prerequisite for locomotion), but it appears that he modeled his female figures using a celery stalk, a couple of grapefruits, and a head of garlic. Despite being an obsessive comic reader at the time of Image’s launch, I somehow managed to avoid reading pretty much every Image book on the stands. This was due in large part to my being a Marvel zombie and my ill-informed perception that support of those renegade artists was verboten if I wanted to remain loyal to the House that Stan (and Many Others, Whether Credited or Not) built. I’ve never systematically remedied this gap in my comic library, in large part because I haven’t been particularly impressed with the early Image books that I have read. Overcome by a burst of nostalgia, however, and dissatisfied with the current output from the House of Stan, I decided to crack open the cover on a massive collection of Savage Dragon. Putting aside the horrifically and overtly sexual representation of women, the non-female part of Larsen’s art somehow manages to look really cool despite the inattention to the practical realities of biological infrastructure, which was sufficient to hold my interest (for the most part) despite the storytelling lacking much in the way of depth. Larsen’s a big fan of stringing together splash-page money shots with intermittent bursts of dialogue; it’s a bit like watching a greatest hits porn collection intercut with dialogue scenes from a Van Damme movie. Entertaining, despite its shortcomings (and no, that’s not a porn joke)? Sure, though I think this volume is sufficient to satisfy my Savage Dragon curiosity (though I confess that I’m exceedingly impressed by Larsen’s longevity on the book—that’s an astonishing feat of creative endurance). I’m not sure I can recommend it unless you’re into all-action, gritty superhero books with vague origin stories, drawn out story arcs that all end in lots of punching (though some of those look quite good), horrific female characterization, and intermittent moments of humor and pathos. We’ll call it 2.5 stars.