Savage Dragon #1

Name: Savage Dragon #1
Brand: Image
Availability: InStock

Jun 1993 · Image · 1.95 USD; 2.45 CAD

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“Enter: Barbaric and Ricochet”

★ 1st appearance — Barbaric★ 1st appearance — Ricochet★ 1st appearance — Bonnie Harris

About this Issue

Savage Dragon #1 (June 1993) marks the launch of one of the most enduring creator-owned superhero series in American comics: a monthly ongoing that grew directly from the success of the 1992 three-issue miniseries and has been written, penciled, and inked by Erik Larsen continuously ever since — a distinction that makes it the longest-running full-color comic book produced by a single writer-artist. The issue plants the narrative seeds of the series' defining tension — a super-powered amnesiac cop in a corrupt Chicago policed by mutant 'superfreaks' — while introducing the first appearances of key supporting and villain characters who would anchor the book's universe for decades. As one of Image Comics' original launch-era titles, its survival as a genuinely creator-controlled ongoing stands as a testament to the founding philosophy of creator ownership that reshaped the industry in the early 1990s.

writer, artist, inker Erik Larsen · colorist Steve Oliff · colorist Reuben Rude · letterer Chris Eliopoulos · colorist Abel Mouton · colorist Kiko Taganashi · colorist Tracey Anderson · colorist Squeaky Zindel · colorist Quinn Supplee · colorist Tony Kelly · colorist Xan Micka · colorist Patty Stratton Jordan · colorist Emily Jordan · colorist Denise Bein · colorist Cathy Enis · colorist Olyoptics · colorist Kell-O-Graphics · colorist Marie Rude · cover Erik Larsen

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (NM) $3

CGC 9.8 · 255 in census $52

CGC 9.6 · 64 in census $24

CGC 9.4 · 25 in census $23*

CGC 9.2 · 7 in census $21*

CGC 9.0 · 10 in census $20*

CGC 8.5 · 6 in census $20*

Show all 11 grades ▾

CGC 8.0 · 2 in census $20*

CGC 7.5 · 1 in census $20*

CGC 7.0 · 3 in census $20*

CGC 6.5 none in existence

CGC 6.0 · 1 in census $20*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

This exact issue on ebay

CGC 9.8 ▾ $54–$64.99 2 listings

CGC 9.8 $54 CGC 9.8 $64.99

CGC 9.6 $59.95 1 listing CGC 9.4 $80 1 listing Raw — MINT $4.99 1 listing

Raw — NM+ ▾ $7.8–$14.99 2 listings

NM+ $7.8 NM+ $14.99

Raw — NM $8.99 1 listing

Raw — NM- ▾ $1.49–$50 3 listings

NM- $1.49 NM- · Signed Erik Larsen $39.99 NM- · Signed Erik Larsen $50

Raw — VF/NM $3.96 1 listing

Raw / ungraded ▾ $1.5–$90 20 listings

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1993 Image Comics The Savage Dragon Issue 1 Erik Larsen Cover Artist FREE SHIPNG $10

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History

Erik Larsen conceived the Dragon character during his childhood, originally drawing the character in homemade comics before the character's first public appearance in the self-published Graphic Fantasy #1 in 1982 and later in Gary Carlson's Megaton #3 in 1986. When Larsen departed Marvel in 1992 to co-found Image Comics, he reworked the character into a massively built green amnesiac who joins the Chicago Police Department, debuting this version in a three-issue Image miniseries (cover-dated July 1992). The commercial success of that miniseries was sufficient justification for Image to green-light a full ongoing monthly series, with Larsen serving as sole creator, writer, penciler, and inker — a single-creator commitment he has maintained across the series' entire run. The ongoing's first issue was published June 2, 1993, edited by Jannie Wong, with coloring by Reuben Rude, Steve Oliff, and Xan Micka, and lettering by Chris Eliopoulos.

Trivia · 8 facts

Published June 2, 1993 by Image Comics; written, penciled, and inked entirely by Erik Larsen — the same creative arrangement Larsen has maintained for the full run of the series.
First appearances of Barbaric (secret identity: Barney Runningbear), Ricochet (secret identity: Rikki Shaefer), and The Shrew (secret identity: Chris Vantage), who become recurring fixtures of the early series.
First appearances of Vicious Circle members Hazard, Johnny Nitro, Torment, and Kill-Blow, deepening the criminal ecosystem of the book's Chicago setting.
First appearance of Bonnie Harris, the mother of Dragon's murdered girlfriend Debbie Harris, who confronts Dragon at her daughter's grave — establishing a key emotional thread of the ongoing.
Horridus appears in a voice-only cameo, with no visual identification, foreshadowing a character who would become a named member of Freak Force.
The issue establishes the corrupt bargain at the heart of the early series: the Vicious Circle blackmails Lt. Frank Darling into protecting them after he reveals he engineered an attack on his own cousin to coerce Dragon into joining the police force.
The ongoing series launched directly from the success of the 1992 Savage Dragon three-issue miniseries; Savage Dragon #1 (1993) has since been reprinted in the Savage Dragon Archives Vol. 1 (collecting the miniseries and ongoing #1–21) and the Savage Dragon Ultimate Collection HC line.
The series was adapted into an animated television series produced by Universal Cartoon Studios that aired 26 episodes on the USA Network from 1995 to 1996, with Dragon voiced by Jim Cummings and supporting voice cast including Mark Hamill, Michael Dorn, and Jennifer Hale.