Zot! Book 1 by Scott McCloud

Zot! Book 1 Reviews

• 
  Dan Schwent

  When young Jenny Weaver and her family move to a new town, she's friendless until a portal to another universe opens up and Zot pops out just in time to stop some killer robots. Zot invites Jenny to visit his universe, dragging her into the adventure of a lifetime involving the missing key to the Doorway at the Edge of the Universe...
  
  I first stumbled upon Zot in a dollar bin sometime in 1996 or 97. I'd seen ads for it in various Eclipse comics over the years but never picked it up. Needless to say, I was hooked and acquired this volume around the turn of the century. Now, decades later, I've taken the plunge again.
  
  Zot! was created as a response to the trend of darkness in comics that led to Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, a throwback to the early days of comics with modern (at the time) sensibilities. It was and is a lot of fun.
  The world Zot inhabits runs not quite parallel to our own, a retro-future 1965 straight out of the pulps of the 1930s, full of robots and flying cars and such. Zot is the world's only super-hero, his powers are his relentless optimism and gadgets created by his uncle, Max. When Jenny sees a chance to escape the despair in her new hometown, she jumps at it.
  
  I have to think there's some Peter Pan in Zot's parentage, at least for the setup. The minimalist art is part manga, part CC Beck, with some silver age Marvel worked in. It's baffling that this is Scott McCloud's first work and he published it at 23. McCloud must have been a prodigy. His panel layouts and use of perspective show a maturity far beyond 23 years. There's some Steranko, some Ditko Doctor Strange, and some manga influenced panels. Some of the character designs are very iconic, like Dekko, with his head resembling the Empire State Building, or Zot himself, who looks like he could be the son of Adam Strange, Captain Marvel, and/or Captain Comet.
  
  The story encapsulates a lot of fun things: robots, talking simians, flying cars, holy war, teenage love, and jetpacks. McCloud tells an epic tale in ten issues but each issue is satisfying on its own.
  
  In my opinion, Zot! has more than stood the test of time. Someone should collect all 36 issues in a snazzy hardcover one of these days. 4 out of 5 stars.
• 
  Vicente Ribes

  Un cómic diferente, que aunque utiliza un superhéroe como protagonsita tiene unos secundarios y una trama muy divertida. Estos diez primeros números fueron una especie de prueba y según su autor estaba experimentando pero enemigos como Dekko, un artista que se vuelve loco y cambia su cuerpo con protesis para ser una obra de arte abstracto o Jack 9, un cyborg que puede introducirse dentro de los cableados para desaparecer cuando quiere son fantásticos. Para mí imprescindible antes de continuar con el integral que contiene el resto de números de la colección.
• 
  Dani Shuping

  Way back when, before Scott McCloud wrote his seminal work Understanding Comics he created his own superhero called Zot. Zot is rather unique in the comics world, in part because Zot is a teenage superhero, but mostly because of the critical issues that Scott explored between Zot's world (a parallel earth) and our own world. Zot and crew challenged assumptions and explored moral themes that were by and large not touched upon in most mainstream comics. This isn't comicsforge's first look at Zot. Way back when, almost at the beginning of comicsforge.com, Josh reviewed the Complete Zot which collects the adventures of Zot, Jenny, and the rest of the gang from issue 11 to the end. And what about those first 10 issues you ask? They were collected separately in this first collection (out of print but can still be found used) on just how Zot entered into our world, how he met Jenny for the very first time, and why the heck Butch turns into a monkey everytime he enters Zot’s world.
  
  Jenny is your typical normal girl...well she is a bit lonely, but that's just because she moved to a new town. And then...a portal opens and Zot, a young teenage superhero from an alternate world appears chasing a troop of robots in pursuit of a key. After helping Zot, Jenny accompanies him back to his world (along with her older brother Butch) and see the wonders of this new place. They meet new people and robots that work! And Butch gets turned into a monkey! And Zot and crew continue to unravel the mystery of the key to avert a war and to save a world (and perhaps more.)
  
  One of the things that is special about Zot is that he is not your typical superhero. He’s a young teenage boy, full of altruism and hope, and the fallacies of believing he can do everything. In this collection we get to find out so much about him and what makes him tick. For me these first 10 issues don't have quite the impact that the rest of the Zot series does. In part, because McCloud is still finding his voice and the story in these early issues. But...the stories told are still fascinating look at an alternative superhero. One that defies the traditional one in some ways in that he's not afraid to show his weaknesses, he isn't afraid to admit when he made a mistake, and he isn't afraid to let his emotions show. Even early on McCloud is still a masterful storyteller captivating the reader with the tales of Zot, Jenny, and Butch and their adventures. McCloud is able to capture people as they really are...their emotions, the way the move, the way they speak all accurately captured within these pages. And that's the highest compliment I can offer to this series.
  
  One of the biggest differences in these first 10 issues, besides Scott finding his voice, is that these issues are in color vs. the black and white of the later series. It's a more typical style of the comics of the era and to be honest I much prefer the black and white series. While Scott's line work remains the same, the color in some ways dampens and hides some of the details that show up in the later series. That being said Scott still creates powerful expressions on the characters faces, ones that are easy to read and give deeper meaning to the story at hand. One of my favorite pages (which I'll be honest in enhanced by the color) is right near the end, where Zot's face is depicted out on hundreds of television screens and people are rejoicing, bowing, praising, etc. in front of the screen. It's powerful and heartbreaking all at the same time. No words are ever said on these two pages and no words are needed.
  
  If you like comics that are a bit different, ones with depth and humanity to them then I highly recommend that you pick up the Zot series. You won't regret it at all.
• 
  Rindis

  Before there was Understanding Comics Scott McCloud was known for Zot!, a fun, well-written romp through the futures of the past.
  
  McCloud manages to be fun, fast paced and witty as Jenny Weaver is dragged from our world to one where every bright promise of the future has come true.
  
  This volume has the initial 10-issue full color story. While Scott McCloud's black-and-white work in the rest of the series is extremely strong, this particular story demands not only color but the bright vibrant colors of a good printing job which helps reinforce the '60s shiny-future setting of much of the story.
  
  Hidden underneath the high-flying, high-adventure hijinks is a fairly thoughtful story. Our Earth is not belittled, it is not as nice, but a much more complex place, which Zot (the title character) finds interesting—a theme that is explored during the rest of the series.
• 
  Dan

  This out of print book collects Scott McCloud's earliest Zot stories. These earlier stories are much different than the later black and white ones just recently collected. They're a little looser, more sci-fi oriented. However, they're a lot of fun and the colors really lend well to McCloud's vision of retro-futurism. Well worth the read if you can find this edition.
• 
  Thurston Hunger

  Utopia, sci-fi and a healthy dose of charismatic innocence. Glad my one son tracked this down, but I think the other will enjoy it even more when he reads it.
  
  It is interesting to me that the perennial teenager hero carries a gun.
• 
  Jared Millet

  It's a strange sensation to go back and read a master of a genre's early works. The first few issues of Zot! are really rough - it's obvious that McCloud was still finding his way, stretching his legs, figuring out how to tell stories, and cramming too much into each issue. That said, he learns the ropes pretty quick over just a handful of issues, and by the end of this volume is delivering some seriously good comic book, great cartooning, and at least one utterly jaw-dropping two-page spread.
  
  Zot! is set in a shiny, happy retro-futuristic parallel Earth (and Sirius IV), and is a bright antithesis to the "dark" comics that were already overtaking the genre in the 80s. That said, for a campy cross between Flash Gordon and Tom Swift, the first volume of Zot! goes to some pretty dark places in its storytelling. The difference is that McCloud doesn't linger there and he always brings the reader back to the light.
• 
  Dustin

  Just is1
• 
  PottWab Regional Library

  SM
  
• 
  Jdetrick

  Good fun superheroics. It's not groundbreaking, but it does what it does extremely well.