Zot!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the comic book. For the esoteric computer language, see Iota and Jot.
- This article is about the comic book. For the word "zot", see zot.
Zot! is a comic book created by Scott McCloud in 1984 and published by Eclipse Comics until 1990. There were a total of 36 issues, with the first ten in color and the remainder in black and white. McCloud credited Astro Boy creator and "God of Manga" Osamu Tezuka as a major influence on the book, making it one of the first manga-inspired American comic books.
Main characters included:
- Jenny, a sensitive teenage girl from our world.
- Her older brother, Butch, who gets turned into a chimp on Zot's world.
- Zachary T. Paleozogt, known as Zot, a blond haired, blue eyed hero from an alternate Earth who flies via rocket boots and fights villains with a ten-shooter laser gun. Zot's Earth shares certain elements with ours, but its retro-futuristic technology is reminiscent of Golden Age SF.
- Zot's Uncle Max, an eccentric inventor whose gadgets helped Zot fight crime.
- Peabody, Zot's robot butler/guardian.
The comic has long been out of print. It was reprinted in several volumes: Book One (ISBN 0-87816-427-8), which collected issues 1-10; Book 2 (ISBN 0-87816-428-6), which collected issues 11-15 and 17-18; and Book 3 (ISBN 0-87816-429-4) which collected issues 16 and 21-27. Book 4, collecting the "real world arc" of issues 28-36, was to have been published by Kitchen Sink Press, but was a casualty of that company's turmoil.
In 2000, ten years after the last print issue appeared, McCloud brought the series back in webcomic format with a story called "Hearts And Minds," which comprised 440 panels spread out over 16 weekly installments.
[edit] Plot summary
(The following section contains spoilers for issues 28-36.)
The first 10 issues were set primarily in Zot's alternate universe. Later issues placed a greater emphasis on stories set in our universe, culminating in the "real world arc" of the book's nine final issues, in which Zot is stranded in our universe for a number of months. He attends high school with Jenny and encounters problems such as poverty, bigotry, and alcoholism which are virtually unknown in his utopian Earth.
The series is notable for its Golden Age influence, its metafictional underpinning, and its energetic visual design. Also notable is the real world arc's exploration of teenage sexuality.
[edit] Awards
The first trade paperback, published by Kitchen Sink, was a top votegetter for the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Reprint Graphic Album for 1998.
