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The panel above is one of my favorites in all the comics I’ve read. It’s on the last page of Zot! issue #12 (published circa 1985) where Zot, a superhero from a alternate reality Earth where everything is perfect, kisses Jenny, a “normal” girl from our Earth.  It was sweet, optimistic and refreshingly NORMAL. Why did Spider-Man so often turn away from Mary Jane? Shouldn’t the hero be happy to have a girlfriend, and just kiss her? Zot and Jenny were in love and so they kissed each other. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but at that time, it was. Comics never ended simply or sweetly. There were murders and rapes and government conspiracies and alien costumes and triumphant confessions of secret identities, but only Zot! had the guts to believe that a simple kiss between two teenagers was a powerful enough moment to be the payoff for a story.

Also, Zot made a tremendous change partway through its run. For the first ten issues, the story takes place in Zot’s world: a happy, retro-world where everything is like an old sci-fi version of the future. There’s moving sidewalks and robot butlers and jetpacks, etc. Zot always wins. There are bad guys, but many of them were like silly and adorable Batman (tv show) villains.

Then in issue 11, the comic totally changed. It went from color to black and white (for budget reason, I believe — though it also made the art more beautiful and striking) and the action shifted to Jenny’s world. In that first issue there’s a fire and Zot is dismayed to discover that he fails to save the family. Bad things happen here, and they have to deal with it. Sometimes the stories were too obvious and ham-handed. But if you wanted a break from Wolverine slicing up bad guys with increasingly annoying catch-phrases, then Zot! was an oasis.

Zot! isn’t as well known as other mid-80s comics like The Dark Knight Returns or Maus.  Scott McCloud, the author and artist is much more famous for his Understanding Comics, which he did a few years after Zot! ended. But lots of comics fans loved it and remember Zot! The Hines brothers certainly did and do.

A new collection of Zot’s “black and white” issues (11 through the end of its run) is coming out next week. The last few have never been reprinted since the original run. I am very excited for this collection.

The Dark Knight (movie) opens tomorrow. The Hines Brothers are going. I was going to write about what it was like be reading comics when The Dark Knight Returns (which I also loved) came out, but I remembered reading Zot! at the same time and here we are. A lot of times I explain things that don’t need to be explained.

| Tags: brian, comics, dark knight returns, frank miller, kevin, scott mccloud, zot