Engaging, if uneven, storytelling—and oh man, lovely art. I thoroughly enjoyed this visit to McCloud's retro SF setting and hope the unpublished stories mentioned in the commentary make it to print. ( )

This collection shows how Scott McClouds early work on Zot differs from the later work as his style matures and settles. A Deceptively deep comic with Pulp trappings, but which investigates universal questions about who we choose to be as we grow up and ultimately what is important for one's own individual happiness Long-term.
Doesn't get five stars due to binding quality. My new copy had a spine which didn't hold up to reading, and split in the middle - it is a thick volume, but shouldn't have split on first reading ( )

Before [book:Understanding Comics], writer/artist Scott McCloud created the adventures of Zachary T. Paleozogr (aka Zot), a teenager from an alternate Utopian Earth in the "far-flung future of 1965." Zot discovers a portal to our consensus 1980s reality and explores our not-so-perfect existence. He befriends the teen Jenny Weaver and their adventures in both universes serve as the centerpiece for these delightful stories. Initially, the tales primarily revolve around Zot, who is a super-hero in his native land, and the colorful villains he encounters. About two-thirds of the way through this massive 575 page collection, the story focus changes dramatically as Zot gets trapped on our Earth and the stories begin to center around Zot and Jenny's friends. Basically, the series evolves into a high school drama with an exiled super-hero. The Earth Stories, the last sequence title, transforms an entertaining exploration of super hero and science fiction tropes into a superior dramatic comic book. Throughout, McCloud offers explanations and digressions into the individual stories through a series of commentaries and end notes. Perhaps most profoundly, this book grants an insight into the artistic evolution of one of comicdom's greatest ambassadors and educators. ( )

I wasn't sure what to expect with Zot! But in every bookstore there is always one seriously abused looking copy of Zot (Joe told me this once, since then I have been checking and it appears to be true).

Zot is a super hero from another dimension, with a planet called Earth that has all of the good things and none of the bad. He is friends with Jenny from our Earth and meets all of her other friends. The first half of the book focuses on Zot and his adventures facing super villians in his world. It is discovered that there are several things such as songs that shouldn't be in Zot's world because the acts the works are based on never occurred there. Zot and his Uncle Max plan on coming to Earth to decipher which Earth is the true Earth and which might be a copy, but Zot gets stuck on our Earth and Uncle Max gets left behind. Then the book focuses on Jenny and her friends, their lives and experiences in school and at home.

The stories are wonderful,however I kind of wish they had gone back to working on which Earth was the copy. I feel like that could have been an interesting story too. ( )

I wasn't sure what to expect with Zot! But in every bookstore there is always one seriously abused looking copy of Zot (Joe told me this once, since then I have been checking and it appears to be true).

Zot is a super hero from another dimension, with a planet called Earth that has all of the good things and none of the bad. He is friends with Jenny from our Earth and meets all of her other friends. The first half of the book focuses on Zot and his adventures facing super villians in his world. It is discovered that there are several things such as songs that shouldn't be in Zot's world because the acts the works are based on never occurred there. Zot and his Uncle Max plan on coming to Earth to decipher which Earth is the true Earth and which might be a copy, but Zot gets stuck on our Earth and Uncle Max gets left behind. Then the book focuses on Jenny and her friends, their lives and experiences in school and at home.

The stories are wonderful,however I kind of wish they had gone back to working on which Earth was the copy. I feel like that could have been an interesting story too. ( )