Zot!: The Complete Black-and-White Collection: 1987-1991

Zot!: The Complete Black-and-White Collection: 1987-1991 by Scott McCloud
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Zot!: The Complete Black-and-White Collection: 1987-1991 collects issues 11-36 of Zot!, the black and white issues.

Back in the day, my first exposure to Zot! was issues 30 & 31, two of the Earth stories about Jenny and her friends. Since the scars of adolescence were still fairly fresh, I was enthralled. As fate should have it, Scott McCloud published a book of the black and white issues of Zot!, of which the Earth stories were a part of.

The book starts off in the vein of the last book, albeit in black and white. Jenny is pining over Zot and he arrives. After a series of adventures on Zot's earth, the story shifts to our earth and focuses on more human stories.

I don't know how long the hiatus between issues 10 and 11 of Zot were but Scott McCloud's art evolved by leaps and bounds. Black and white definitely did him a favor, both in the more super-heroic tales and the Earth stories. The manga influence is still there, as is the traditional super hero influence, but the man can draw! His earth stories have so much more intricate art. To paraphrase the man himself, drawing utopian cityscapes is one thing but a Burger King in the rain is something else.

While I enjoy the black and white super hero stories, with Dekko, The Blotch, 9-Jack-9, and Bellows, the Earth stories are far, far better. A few of them were nominated for Eisner awards. The Earth stories focus on Jenny and her friends and Zot is in the periphery for the most part. McCloud tells some personal, emotional stories and tackles subjects like alcoholism, homosexuality, homophobia, teenage sex, and racism, all problems that have been solved since 1991. <---- Before anyone chimes in, I was being sarcastic.

The ending was sad but hopeful. I'm glad McCloud left things open-ended enough to do Zot Online years later. I'll have to give that a read sometime soon.

The first time I read these comics, I was only a couple years older than Jenny and her high school friends. I'm happy to say the past couple decades have not diminished the series. It's still a five star read, particularly the earth stories.

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