The image of the dragon – angry and smokin’ – stretches across half the page.

With his bat-like wings folded inward and the full weight of his scaly mass resting on his claws, he seems ready to attack. At his side, a frightened man waits with a drawn sword.

The narration describes “a thing of fire and smoke, a thing with the stench and color of cadaverous flesh. A dragon most evil! A dragon most foul!”

Of all the images that Lisbon artist Michael Jordan has created, this one is his favorite.

Richly drawn with detail, from the ridge of fur along the dragon’s back to the scared expression on the man’s face, the image is meant to be dramatic, but not scary.

Jordan’s comic, “The Parverian Tales,” is going for something else.

He wants to bring fun back to comics.

In the panels that follow the dragon, Eric, the hero, arrives at the rescue without his sword. He’s chivalrous, but absent-minded and impetuous, too.

It’s mean to diffuse the tension. There’s too much grimness and angst in modern comics, he said.

So he’s making his own.

A lifelong comics fan, the 37-year-old artist has begun his own publishing house, Big Red A Press. And he’s planning to do what few if any comic books have managed: to sell the bulk of its copies on the Internet via his Web site, www.bigredapress.com. The book is also available at several comics stores across Maine.

He’s beginning with a world he first created when he was still a teenager.

He calls it Parveria. It’s a kind of medieval fantasy whose characters were originally based on friends at Lisbon High School.

Jordan – now middle-aged and standing a 6 feet, 8 inches tall – treasures that foundation of innocence.

As a boy, he grew up on Marvel Comics and loved such characters as the Fantastic Four and Spiderman.

“I loved seeing Spiderman banter with the bad guys,” he said. “But comic books just aren’t fun anymore.”

Contemporary comics are populated by tortured heroes, violence and suggestive images of women.

“I wouldn’t let my 7-year-old nephew read them,” Jordan said.

However, he can read “The Parverian Tales.” Each one was written to appeal to both children and adults.

He calls it the “Huckleberry Finn approach.”

“Fail or succeed, that’s the way I’m going to go,” Jordan said.