Issue #28 > Erik Larsen on art, comics, and impactful storytelling

Erik Larsen sits down with Eva to talk about producing comics, art, and storytelling. It's a really solid show.Bio: Erik Larsen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As a child growing up in Bellingham, Washington and Albion, California, Erik Larsen created numerous comic books featuring versions of a character named ‘Dragon’. At the age of 19, Erik self-published a fanzine called Graphic Fantasy, which featured his character the Dragon and it led to his doing professional work on a comic book called Megaton.After showing his work, Erik became acquainted with Jim Shooter, Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief. Jim was impressed enough with his work that he consented to co-plot a story with him at the convention. That story was a battle between the Hulk and Thor. It wasn’t actually published until years later, but it did impress the Editors enough to get Larsen some high-profile work in the funnybook field.When artist Todd McFarlane left his artistic duties on The Amazing Spider-Man, Larsen was chosen to be his successor. That run was well-received, and included popular stories like “The Return of the Sinister Six”, “The Cosmic Spider-Man”, and “The Powerless Spider-Man”.In 1992, Larsen co-founded ‘Image’ at Malibu comics, alongside creators Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Whilce Portacio, and Jim Valentino. Image split off from Malibu and 1993 and has established itself as the third-largest comic book publisher in the United States.Erik’s flagship comic book at Image was an updated version of his childhood creation – “The Savage Dragon”. Larsen has been succeeding with his ideas ever since. He was Publisher of Image Comics from 2004-2008.In 2012 Erik wrote and drew a short run on Rob Liefeld’s Supreme, initially penciling Alan Moore’s final Supreme story. That same year he bought the rights to the character ‘Ant’ from creator Mario Gully. Ant was a book that was at one point published at Image Comics and Erik always thought that the character and its iconic design had potential.2017 saw the release of Savage Dragon #225 celebrating 25 years of the Dragon and Image Comics in an epic 100 pages extravaganza.Guest Links: Erik Larsen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ErikJLarsen Image Comics: https://imagecomics.com/  Savage Dragon: http://www.savagedragon.com/Show links: Eva Webb on Twitter – https://twitter.com/EvaIsAdorable  Activity Page – https://characters.evawebb.me/issue-28  Support the show – https://www.buymeacoffee.com/evaisadorable  Empress Luxiva on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmpressLuxiva  Titular Characters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TitularPod--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/titular-characters/support