Erik Larsen

Erik J. Larsen (born December 8, 1962) is an American comic book artist, writer, and publisher.

He currently acts as the chief financial officer of Image Comics.

Larsen was born on December 8, 1962, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

He has one older brother and two younger sisters.

Growing up in Bellingham, Washington, he became interested in comics through his father, a professor of English who read EC Comics, and owned a large collection of Captain Marvel Adventures.

Through him, Larsen was exposed to those books and those of Marvel Comics, and began to buy comics in earnest in the mid-1970s.

It was Larsen's exposure to Dick Sprang's rendition of Batman that would later influence the earliest incarnations of his own creation, The Dragon, who drove a car copied from Speed Racer's Mach Five, and who turned into a superhero using a magic word to trigger his powers like Captain Marvel.

About a decade after creating the Dragon, Larsen and two friends produced a fanzine called Graphic Fantasy, which featured this character.

For the anthology Megaton #1 (1983), Larsen co-created and illustrated a feature called "Vanguard" with publisher Gary Carlson.

A revised version of the Dragon debuted in issue #2 and made a cameo appearance in the following two issues.

The original Dragon, inspired by elements from Captain Marvel, Batman, Speed Racer and later The Incredible Hulk, differs greatly from the modern incarnation.

Savage Dragon was first featured in two issues of Graphic Fantasy, a self-published title with a small print run, published by Larsen and two friends.

In this incarnation, the Dragon was a widower and a retired member of a government-sponsored superhero team.

Subsequently, the Dragon made another appearance in the third issue of Gary Carlson's Megaton anthology in its Vanguard strip, which Larsen had been drawing.

In these appearances, the character of the Dragon remained basically the same as it had been in Graphic Fantasy, with a few details modified (such as the inclusion of his wife, who was dead in his previous incarnation).

Both the Graphic Fantasy and Megaton issues featuring the Dragon were later reprinted in high-quality editions.

In 1985 Larsen worked on Sentinels of Justice for AC Comics, and The DNAgents for Eclipse Comics.

By 1986, Larsen penciled scripts for The Renegade Press book Murder, which were written by Robin Snyder and Jim Senstrum, whom Larsen met because Snyder, like Larsen, lived in Bellingham, Washington, and frequented the same comics store.

Larsen did work at DC on The Outsiders, Teen Titans, Adventures of Superman and Doom Patrol.

His art on Doom Patrol was negatively received by readers at first, something Larsen thought was due to his style being such a drastic departure from that of his predecessor on the series, Steve Lightle.

He remarked, "Years later, I learned from the experience and made more of an effort to ease the transition."

He gained attention in the early 1990s with his art on Spider-Man series for Marvel Comics.

In 1990 Erik Larsen replaced Todd McFarlane on The Amazing Spider-Man with issue #329, having previously penciled issues 287, 324 and 327.

With writer David Michelinie, Larsen illustrated stories such as "The Cosmic Spider-Man", "The Return of the Sinister Six" (#334–339) and "The Powerless Spider-Man" (#341–343).

He left the title with #350, was succeeded by Mark Bagley with #351.

Larsen again succeeded McFarlane on Spider-Man, where he wrote and drew the six-issue story arc "Revenge of the Sinister Six" (#18–23).

Larsen also gained critical acclaim for his work with the character Venom during his time on Amazing Spider-Man.

His design of Venom was highlighted during the story "Venom Returns" (#330–#333, #344–347, Annual #25), which introduced signature visual elements to the character such as giving Venom a long reptilian tongue dripping slime.

Though his work with Venom was widely lauded and sales were strong, Larsen has gone on record saying he did not enjoy drawing the character and that he found the origin story of both Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote to be unlikable.

In 1992 he was one of several artists who stopped working for Marvel to found Image Comics, where he launched his superhero series Savage Dragon – one of the longest running creator-owned superhero comics series – and served for several years as the company's publisher.

Larsen stopped working for Marvel in 1992 (see below) but has occasionally returned to write and illustrate, on titles such as Fantastic Four, The Defenders, Wolverine and Nova.

In 1998, he briefly wrote the series Aquaman.

His first work for Marvel Comics was a fill-in on Thor that was inked by Vince Colletta.

He later did a fill-in issue of The Amazing Spider-Man and five issues of Punisher for Marvel.

He then pitched to editor Terry Kavanaugh a story he would write and draw for Marvel Comics Presents featuring Nova, a character that Larsen adored.

It was initially approved, but when it was found that it did not fit with an impending storyline in New Warriors, a team book in which Nova was a member, Larsen's series was cancelled.

Larsen instead drew an "Excalibur" arc for Marvel Comics Presents, despite lacking interest in that group, because he needed work.

This led to Larsen doing more Spider-Man work.

In 2000, he returned to pencil The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2, issues #19–21 with writer Howard Mackie.

In 2019, he penciled and wrote Amazing Spider-man: Going Big, a one-shot for Marvel's 80th anniversary, along with Mark Bagley and Gerry Conway.