Erik Larsen on Savage Dragon #198: Malcolm Versus Monsters, Body Odor and His Terrible Taste in Music

#198 took a break from the crime-ridden streets of Chicago to reveal a world of monsters and demons under the streets...

...like, lots of them.

As always, Savage Dragon creator Erik Larsen joined us to talk about the issue -- but this month, for the first time in a while, we were joined by series editor Gavin Higginbotham for a roundtable chat.

If you haven't read it yet, go buy a copy and read along with us.

Gavin Higginbotham: We get to see the first ever meeting between Malcolm and Maxine in the flashback. Was Maxine not originally thought of as a love interest of Malcolm? Dragon and Rapture's first meeting wasn't initially seen either and had to be added in retroactively. A funny parallel there.

Erik Larsen: The book wasn't completely mapped out from day one. How could it be? There have been crossovers with characters that didn't exist when the book started. Part of the fun of it is watching the characters' lives unfold and often that means me surprising myself. Sometimes one-off background villains become mainstays and other times characters come together in unexpected ways.

Higginbotham:Is Maxine now everyone's favorite supporting character? And if not, why not?

Larsen: She's certainly a favorite around here.

Higginbotham:This issue marks the permanent switch over to you drawing "twice up" artwork? How's the change working out so far?

Larsen: There's always challenges. The hardest one is losing yourself in a figure, stepping back and seeing that you made their head too big or legs too short. It's harder to take in a whole spread or page at once. At the same time it's made drawing smaller panels easier and the pages generally look tighter and more detailed so it's a good trade-off plus the original art just looks impressive as all hell at that size.

I cannot be the only person amused that you've named Malcolm's love interest "MJ" in the flashbacks, can I?

Larsen: I would hope not.

Russ Burlingame: Are there longer-term plans for Officer Chow? He seems like a cool character to have recur.

Larsen: Slowly but surely I'm filling in a new cast of Chicago Police Officers. It's a slower process since they're no longer the focus. I do like him.

Burlingame: It's interesting seeing that scene with Frank, Jr. -- is he leading the police to believe that he has more pull with Malcolm these days than he really does?

Larsen: I don't think so. He's a pretty straight up guy. And Frank is still friends with Malcolm.

Burlingame: Also, I didn't recognize the name "Harry Moss," but the way it was dropped in there, I assume I was either meant to, or it was a plant for later. Am I wrong?

Larsen: No. You weren't meant to.

Burlingame: Sometimes the real-time element of the book doesn't occur to me until something like, "Oh, yeah, he's starting school at the right time." Is it just second nature at this point, dropping something like that into the script a few months ahead?

Larsen: I try to and it's not always easy. Stories spill into each other and it's easy to get a few months off in a heartbeat. I can't always cover a full month's worth of events in any given issue. That means often skipping events like Christmas or birthdays. If I did otherwise it could be a year long celebration of one thing or another.

Right now I'm looking at the next few issues which do spill from one to the next with little passage of time and it can be pretty troublesome on my end.

Higginbotham: Is this the first time a comic's star has been called out on their body odor?

Larsen: Now that you mention is--maybe? I think there might have been a time that Spider-Man got sprayed with something and stunk but I don't recall a situation where it was the hero's natural funk.

Burlingame: I know you personally have an affinity for that one panel of Maxine, but I think the panel of Malcolm singing "Wrecking Ball" is pretty special, as well.

Larsen: I thought long and hard about the most appropriate song for Malcolm to sing in the shower. I kind of like the idea of Malcolm having the most basic terrible taste in pop culture.

Burlingame: That block of exposition dialogue from the troll is just packed with information. Was that just a tease for what's to come?

Larsen: Sure--and I like expanding these worlds. There's so much that can be done with it all. There's so much to explore.

Higginbotham:How long did that second double page spread take to draw? That looks like it was a bitch to do!

Larsen: Yeah--double page spreads with a cast of thousands is no picnic. Two panel pages would have taken a lot less time to draw, for sure, but that wouldn't have had half of the impact. Sometimes you've gotta do what's best for the story.

Burlingame: Obviously, the circumstances of you acquiring the rights to Ant are well known. Was the ant people invasion always in the cards when you bought the character? Or am I assuming too much even thinking there's a connection?

Larsen: There's no connection at all. I've actually had a few people ask me if this was leading to Maxine becoming the new Ant and that is the farthest thing from my mind. It just made sense as another underground race.

I haven't seen that kind of thing explored much. Plenty of mole people and lava people but no ants. It was another idea just sitting there.

Burlingame: The pit really gave us a new world of crazy for Malcolm. Is it important to give him something like that to differentiate the book from when Dragon was the lead, or is it more just piling this on top of everything else to create an overwhelming environment?

Larsen: I don't really feel it's that necessary to make a huge distinction between his world and his dad's--it's the same place. And while I do want to have there be distinct Malcolm villains the reality is that there are a lot of characters that are still alive and active. I'll be touching on a lot of those as well.

Really, the effort is to expand it all and make the world bigger and more complete. To make it a fully realized world with a lot of toys to play with.

Higginbotham: Considering the potential size of the underground domains, is it possible that there's even more hidden races beneath the surface?

Larsen: Oh, I have no doubt that there is. There's a lot of potential down there.