Comic Book Resources

John Seavey’s Storytelling Engines: Savage Dragon

• by Brian Cronin
• in Storytelling Engines

Here’s the latest Storytelling Engine from John Seavey. Click here to read John’s description of what a Storytelling Engine IS, anyways. Check out more of them at his blog, Fraggmented.

Storytelling Engines: Savage Dragon

(or “Working Without A Net”)

We’ve done a lot of discussing of storytelling engines in this column over the last year or so, but it’s rarely that we’ve discussed a series that doesn’t actually have a storytelling engine. This is because in practical terms, it’s impossible not to have a storytelling engine at all; “storytelling engine” is my way of describing the protagonists, antagonists, supporting cast, background, setting, and central concept of a series, and a series with none of those things wouldn’t be much of a series at all. (”All-new! All-different! Thirty-two all-blank pages!”) But it’s true that some series have more of a “storytelling engine” than others, and some have very little at all.

There are two reasons why this might be, both stemming from the point of a storytelling engine. The list of things mentioned above are there to help the writer generate stories in an open-ended series; if a writer is stuck for an idea, he/she can look to things already established to explore their possibilities further. (So, for example, a Spider-Man writer stuck for an idea can bring back Doctor Octopus, or a Superman writer stuck for an idea can do a “Red Kryptonite” story.) One reason to have a minimal storytelling engine, as I discussed earlier when talking about Howard the Duck, is that the story might not be open-ended. If you just plan to tell as many stories as are in your head and then stop, then you can feel free to make changes as and when necessary.

The other reason, as exemplified in ‘The Savage Dragon’ (yes, that is the subject of this week’s column, I hadn’t forgotten), is that sometimes the writer doesn’t want help in generating stories. Erik Larsen, the writer, penciller and inker of ‘Savage Dragon’ since its inception, wasted very little time in setting up the Dragon’s storytelling engine. He’s found, naked in a burning field, with no memory of his past and very little concern for what it might be. He joins the police force in Chicago (seemingly by whim on Larsen’s part), and starts fighting bad guys. Beyond that, the “storytelling engine” is entirely based on Larsen’s imagination. If he thinks an idea is interesting, he puts it in. When he grows bored with it, he removes it. The setting changes based on his imagination, characters drift in and out when they feel like it, the Dragon’s own background isn’t significantly explored for the first 12 years of the character’s existence (and barely even factors into the fifty issues covered by ‘The Savage Dragon Archives Volumes One and Two’), villains show up, fight, and get killed when Larsen runs out of stories to tell with them…it’s pretty evident that Larsen is not someone who’s worried that he’ll run out of ideas any time soon.

Does it work? Frequently, yes. Not every idea that Larsen throws into the book is a good one (there’s an embarrassing tendency towards pastiche at times, with “Mighty Man”, “Doctor Nirvana”, “Octopus”, “the Arachnid”, “J. Richard Richards”, and other thinly-veiled Marvel and DC characters), but with so many ideas getting tossed into the mix, there’s always something unexpected coming down the pike. Having such a fluid status quo frees Larsen to go wherever his imagination takes him, and so far, for the most part, he hasn’t had trouble getting an issue out the door. More power to him if he can pull it off.

The only question is, how long can he continue to do so? I’m not predicting dire consequences or a sudden attack of writer’s block, here; I’m merely pointing out that one of the big advantages of a storytelling engine is that it endures beyond the span of the engine’s creator. Erik Larsen will no doubt be able to continue writing ‘Savage Dragon’ for a long time to come, but it may not endure past the point where he’s finished with it. Whereas a storytelling engine can be handed off to another writer, and (so long as they don’t break it) it will continue to generate stories for a new writer, even a new generation of writers. Imaginations come and go, but a good engine is built to last.