April issue expands to 100 pages
ORANGE, CA — 22 January, 2004 — No one can ever claim Savage Dragon and Image co-founder Erik Larsen is lazy. Not content with writing, penciling and inking over 100 issues of SAVAGE DRAGON, Larsen has made something of a habit of doing giant-sized issues over the years, and now his latest king-size offering, the 80-page Savage Dragon #115, is being expanded to 100 pages.
“This one got away from me,” Larsen explained. “When it came to wrapping up the current Vicious Circle saga, a 22-page lead feature simply didn’t allow me enough room to tell the story the way I wanted.”
Written, penciled and inked by Larsen, with color by Bill Crabtree and a Freak Force story by Larsen, artist Mark Englert and colorist Dash Martin, Savage Dragon #115 was originally solicited as an 80-page issue that concluded the ‘Vicious Circle Rising’ arc. Because of other special features in the book, though, the lead feature was only allotted the standard 22 pages.
“Leave it to me to run out of room in an 80-page comic book,” Larsen laughed. “But there were so many changes. So many events and deaths that having the story confined to 22 pages was just too limiting. I needed the room to pull off the epic conclusion the story demanded.”
The story itself is the conclusion to the “Vicious Circle Rising” arc beginning in Savage Dragon #115. As the new head of the Vicious Circle takes control, Dragon brings all his allies, past and present, together for one final battle in an attempt to put an end to the nefarious Vicious Circle once and for all. Larsen promises some major changes as a result of the clash: “The death toll is high, the body count impressive.”
Savage Dragon #115 also features an all-new, epic length Freak Force adventure, reuniting the characters from the mid-’90s SAVAGE DRAGON spin-off, but with a surprise twist. The issue also includes the seventh installment of the ten-part Mighty Man serial “The Never-Ending War Against Evil,” along with Erik Larsen’s six-page contribution to the CBLDF fund-raiser, More Fund Comics, seen here in color for the first time.
Savage Dragon #115, a 100-page perfect bound comic with a cover price of $7.95, is available for order now in the November issue of Previews and will go on sale in April.
