Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection

Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection: 1987-1991 by Scott McCloud (amazon)

I just finished reading Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection and was reminded again why Zot! has always been one of my favorite comic books. It is funny that now Scott McCloud is more well-known for being a comics pundit than for creating one of the best indie comics of the late 80s. I don’t usually buy collected editions of things I already own in single issue form, but I thought that a collected edition of Zot! would make for nice satisfying reading. If you haven’t encountered it before, Zot is a superhero on a retrofuturistic version of Earth. His “not-girlfriend” Jenny is a normal kid who is struggling with dealing with all the issues of real life like her parents getting divorced and the torture of high school. The first few issues of the collection feature plenty of superhero fun with Zot fighting villains like the De-Evolutionaries, a cult-like group armed with guns that transform people into apes, and Dr. Bellows, whose weapons are based on technology from the industrial revolution. McCloud shifts into more serious territory when Zot and Jenny are trapped on our Earth, but there is a core of sunny optimism that always remains when one of the main characters is from the far-flung future of 1965. If you haven’t read it before, I recommend picking it up! I’m glad that part of the series is back in print.