Erik Larsen On Hamburgers, Doctor Doom and the Family-Friendly Savage Dragon #206

This week's Savage Dragon #206 was a kind of a different animal than we've had recently. The talk of abortions, sex tapes and the like was waaaay down, the action was up, and a lot of it took place at a hamburger joint in California.

...Huh?

Well, it will all explain itself soon.

As always, Erik Larsen joined us to talk Savage Dragon following this week's release.

Reminder: These interviews are spoiler-heavy. If you haven't already read Savage Dragon #206, buy it now and read along with us.

I can't help but love the novelty of the Oscar's variant cover. I know you've talked a bit about it on Facebook, but what motivated that?

My youngest son goes to school in the East Bay and my wife asked me to drive him there once a week so she could have a break. So, I asked the owner of Oscar's if I could sit there and draw on days when there was available table space. He was fine with that and it's largely worked out. So, I've been drawing there on a regular basis. He's kidded me a few times about doing a store signing at Oscar's--so that seed was planted. And then, after I found out that Oscar's was going to close, the owner asked me about doing a drawing for him of Oscar's as a memento and I came up with the crazy idea of having that drawing be an actual comic book cover and doing a variant exclusively for his hamburger joint. He was up for it and off we went. Essentially, he had nothing to lose. Any unsold copies could be returned to me and I could take them to conventions afterward. And if he sold them all--well, that would be fine as well. It was a win-win.

Do you expect to be harangued by readers at your next few conventions about getting one?

I'm curious how many people will have heard about it.

...And you said you actually released it early at Oscar's! Apparently not too worried about the book being spoiled, then?

Not so much. As issues go there weren't too many spoilers anyway. We already saw Malcolm graduating on the cover, after all.

It's a somewhat unusual issue because it's being released at a family friendly restaurant. It's written somewhat different because of it. It's far more G-Rated than usual. That made it somewhat challenging and it presented some real problems because I wanted to talk about stuff from previous issues without being explicit about it. There are places here where people are essentially talking in code and I used characters who needed to be talked in code around or to in in order to pull that off. Frank didn't want to speak poorly about Tierra in front of their daughter and Willy Williams didn't want to risk saying anything too specific about what he thought might be on the laptops he was returning to Malcolm's apartment manager. I didn't want to be talking about threesomes and abortions in a book which kids or old ladies could be reading.

The driving reason to get it in the hands as soon as possible is that they are closing their doors and the sooner they get the book--the more time they'll have it in their hands and be able to sell it at their restaurant. For a while there it seemed that I might not be able get the book to them in time. Happily that wasn't the case.

How many of your background extras at Oscar's are actually people you know from there?

The guys working there are the actual cook and cashier. Beyond that--not really anybody of note.

Is Maxine's and Malcolm's conversation a little bit applicable to your feelings about Dragon? I feel like you've said in the past that you don't anticipate passing it on to anyone if you were to die or retire.

I wasn't really thinking that but--I could see how a reader might think that. Honestly, that's not really me. I don't care. Once I'm dead I stop caring. If my kids wanted to license the character out or something that's up to them.

You know, you have a Doctor Doom reference in this issue. Be honest: Are you just trying to ride that that Fantastic Four gravy train?

Oh, yeah. That's how that works.

The Angel/Frank/Laila thing got real fast. Do you think that relationship is moving really quickly, or does it just feel like it because the book unfolds in real time so we only see snippets of their existence?

It all does end up getting somewhat truncated because of the real time aspect. But I don't really see this issue as a huge leap. They're spending some time together and kids say the darnedest things. Frank just hinted broadly--there are no commitments there.

Is it safe to assume we haven't seen the last of Tierra? It seems to me as though her failure to break up Malcolm and Maxine, combined with Angel becoming involved with her ex, is just begging for a "response."

We're not done with her. If nothing else she's still Laila's mother and a part of her life. She can always worm her way back into everybody's life. At one point she was good friends with Maxine and Angel and I expect she would like that to be the case again. Plus--she's just fun to draw.

And here we get setup for what's coming in Dimension-X. How long is that story going to take to play out? It seems like now that Maxine is pregnant, we're on a bit of a clock for Malcolm to get back.

True. I've got it set for two-issues, which isn't a lot of space, really. I could have used another but, like you said, the clock is ticking. I don't like to have the months too far off from the real month and I'm already a couple months off of that. Generally kids graduate from school in June, not August.

Was this upcoming story the reason that you wanted to have that Glum story in #200? Or was he just a good foe for the de-powered Dragon to square off with?

Yeah, the story in #200 was in preparation for this. Both of the Glum stories, really. I wanted to remind readers of who this guy is.

Willy Williams being the bearer of Tierra's news kind of doubly throws her under the bus, doesn't it? Like, without actually saying it was her, he told Malcolm that it was her.

I think he feels betrayed. Willy had this juicy bit of Gossip in his grasp and it all dried up. Because of that--I don't imagine he cares about Tierra being tossed under the bus or anything else.

We get the Barry discussion as promised in our last conversation this issue. But what's with Maxine's fixation on an Evil Twin? Will we see that playing out soon with any of the many Dragon-like people floating around?

Maxine just thinks it's ridiculous and hilarious. And it gives me an opportunity to bring Barry into the fold to some extent. I'm not a huge fan of evil twins myself but it's clearly a comic book staple so--there's that.

When you have a villain with a fairly simple design, like this Dimension-X monster, does that affect how you pace the fight at all? It seems like fight scenes can be a bit less dynamic with somebody who doesn't have a really iconic look.

It doesn't really play into it much. When I pencil these stories it's all pretty vague and the pace is set then. If the character ends up iconic or generic they're still appearing in the same number of panels. The only thing which really bumped things around was the Oscar's opening. Had I not done that there likely would have been a longer battle with the Mauve Wolf-Man and more graduation hijinks. With that opening sequence eating up six pages, I had to adjust things accordingly.

You know, the speech about "I was tight with Malcolm Dragon, you know?" is kind of played for laughs, but did you want to kind of seriously touch on the celebrity culture element of Malcolm? It's something that seems like it's working its way back into the book after a few issues of kind of widescreen action where it played a bit less of a role.

It's something that's there and it was touched on by Carl, another friend, in the previous issue. This relationship with Malcolm is a big part of a lot of these kids' lives. They're close to a celebrity here and it will always be there. Now--for Carl, that relationship may go on--whereas for Willard--who was kind of a dick earlier--it may not--and that in itself may make for more potential conflict as these guys try to maintain a relationship past high school.

By "you don't know the half of it," what does Malcolm mean? Has he not been keeping Angel apprised of recent chaos in his personal life?

He had just talked to Maxine about getting married a few minutes ago--and the two haven't told Angel that Maxine is pregnant yet (It's common to wait until the second trimester to inform friends and family because of a higher probability of losing a baby early on) so, yeah, that about sums it up. He's taking a lot bigger step toward adulthood than simply graduating high school.

One more thing that just dawned on me...Is Oscar's in Chicago for the purposes of this comic, or were Malcolm and Maxine on the west coast?

They mention visiting Malcolm's publisher--and that's Image Comics in Berkeley plus the back of the Oscar's shirt says "Blaizin' in Berkeley" so all indication is that it's there but it doesn't actually matter one way or the other. The place is destroyed and it didn't seem worth dwelling on--it could easily take place in Berkeley or Chicago.

Another "fun fact" --I based Malcolm's school on a real Chicago area school. The building he's walked into over the last couple years is that actual building of a real school--and when he played football in #200 (and worn football jerseys thereafter) it's the real school's colors (as is the logo of the book). When he graduates in this issue the podium is the real podium from that school and his diploma is handed to him by the actual principal of that school. I watched a video on YouTube of graduation and I based the set up on that.

[Editor's Note: We talked a little about the school before, remember?]