@Catluck, Pierre has it right.

Savage Dragon big green and mean, The Hulk big grean and mean get the picture?

Larsen is the only guy left who reads his book. ‘NUFF SAID

One question:

“How can you be an editor at Marvel and DON’T know an issue of Savage Dragon!?”

Wow… I’m glad that you’re not involved in editing at all… leaving aside your idea that any editor working from Marvel should know Savage Dragon (which is fairly naive)… that sentence you typed (and chose to post); it doesn’t make sense.

Michaeljjt; you’re right, Wacker didn’t come across well in his reply, but if you’re going to criticise someone for coming across negatively in an internet post, could you do it in a style a little less patronising? It’s a tad hypocrytical. But Larsen is even more consistent at making himself look like an ass on the internet than Wacker.

How can you be an editor at Marvel and DON’T know an issue of Savage Dragon!?

Chris

Obama is a Spidey Fan so its only logical that Marvel would make a book with him.

The Savage Dragon stuff i don’t get. I doubt that Obama actually knows that Savage Dragon exists.

Lets be honest both where a publicity stunt but the Marvel one made more money, so now Erik Larson wants a piece of it and comes with this crap.

Erik should go back to his hole he ‘s been hiding under for the last few years and get some art lessons cause your Obama looks like crap.

I guess Erik Larsen once posted on CBR . . . I went back and read a few . . . what an angry man . . . if he is that worried about SPider-man – do something about it . . . pitch a better idea . . . which can’t be that hard since BND sucks.

September 2008, Erik releases Savage Dragon #137. The issue has a one in five variant cover of Dragon endorsing Barack Obama. Inside Obama is not featured, instead Dragon and Madman are fighting an ape with Hitler’s brain at an Amazing Joy Buzzards concert.

Savage Dragon #137 sold approximately 27% more than 136 giving a total number sales of 7,935. Good for 202nd place. 10 places behind Uncanny X-men 500 in it’s third month of release.

(BTW Savage Dragon #138 sold 6,278 146 issues less than Savage Dragon #136 so not only did he fail to keep any readers he seemed to alienate 150 of his old readers)

Savage Dragon #137 sold 1,657 more copies than the previous issue. The difference in sales between ASM #571 and #572? 1,482 ASM near matched Savage Dragon’s increase without even trying.

(Why am I going through the numbers? to point out that Wacker and Marvel wouldn’t need to be paying attention to Savage Dragon.)

Also before Savage Dragon #137 appeared Obama and McCain have appeared in Secret Invasion or at least Skrull versions had, either way they was acknowledgement that Obama was part of the Marvel Universe.

Obama gets elected. I’m not sure what the timeline is on the Spiderman story. But I get the feeling there was thoughts running through Quesada’s head ever since Obama mentioned he read Spiderman comics.

Given that Marvel is a public corporation they probably felt they couldn’t endorse Obama before election.

Or you accept Larsen’s version which is that Marvel decided that Savage Dragon selling 1700 more copies because it put Obama on the cover was so amazing they had to copy it. Of course upon reading said issue they discover that Obama is not inside, so as per Larsen’s implication, they either read previous issues of Savage Dragon until they found something they could use, or that someone on the Spidey writing staff is so familiar with Savage Dragon they could remember a 4 year old issue and relate the plot to Wacker, who then used it almost exactly. Changing speech to inauguration not being very important at all.

So now we have Spiderman all over the news people lining up to buy it. Larsen somehow feels ‘very betrayed’ as if Marvel had somehow promised him to never come close to something he did, as opposed to Marvel simply taking advantage of Obama connecting himself to Spiderman by making that connection more well known.

Instead of Larsen simply saying that he was pissed off because Marvel stole his thunder by dint of their character being 50 billion times more well known then his character, he chooses to imply plagiarism.

He implies that if he hadn’t done it Marvel would never have come up with the idea on their own. Quesada and Wacker would have heard Obama say he read Spiderman comics, and said ‘Wow that’s neat wish there was some way we could use that to sell more books. Oh well, back to reading Image comics to see if we get some ideas.

It’s beyond ridiculous, but Wacker has to come on and defend the Plagarism charge. Larsen’s response was to either completely misread the post or deliberately misstates what was said.

What we do get is perhaps what Larsen is really upset about. Marvel got a huge amount of publicity and they didn’t use any of it to help him. He wanted Marvel to say oh btw Savage Dragon had Obama on too back in September. Larsen’s upset that Marvel did it after him and got more publicity.

They stole nothing.

Bendrix: Variant cover yes because before Erik Larsen no one ever did a variant cover before. The Obama Cover is pretty much set the same way as the Stephen Colbert cover. it was an incentive they set it up the way they did to try and get people to order more copies. That’s why there’s no flip cover. (granted Marvel screwed up the incentive by making it too complex.)

As for the Fist bump? Be serious. That was Iconic. It got talked about in fox news used on the New Yorker. it was a key visual about how modern he is.