Zenith

IV! When I read it at the time, I kept loving III more, cos it was so CRISIS! (not that I knew what a CRISIS! was, thank God, also I loved all those poor heroes) but looking back now... as a sequential experience (it was the only one I got to read by issues) it was ABSOLUTELY GREAT, nothing had or has ever held me so horrifiedly in suspense, and the character work is perfect, even if it seemed harsh to my 12 or so year old eyes. Is Zenith Grant M's best superhero stuff? Is this phase a culmination? Who do I have to kill/give money to to get this all fucking collected?

It's still v close between 3/4, btw. And I don't mean CRISIS! the comic, which I actually bought not long after.

I haven't read any Zenith for many many years, but I've a suspicion that IV is the correct answer.

I shouldn't really've been allowed to buy Crisis, it had tits (AND MORE!) in it

What happens in each? I can't remember.

Tho' I'll vote Robot Archie on the dinosaur on priciple.

I recall liking III and IV the best, but now I have to re-read them to be sure. Or maybe I am just looking for an excuse to re-read them...

As I recall I-Fights a super Nazi II - Meets his father and maybe fights a robot or something, it's very long and slow III - Inter-dimensional war! IV - Lovecraft beasties try to take over the world and succeed in a way.

I think III is Archie on a dinosaur.

Who do I have to kill/give money to to get this all fucking collected?

rights issues I'm afraid - the latest printing of vol 1 has been sitting in a warehouse for five years

I would say IV because it also wrapped up a bunch of dangling plotlines throughout the whole series, besides being awesome. Not voting tho, because I've only read the whole thing in bits and pieces and half-issues in scans online.

Um, I worked out my Zenith experience by, er, downloading the cbr and printing it double-sided on the office printer. It's only black-and-white!

Other than that, I've seen the trades at comic-cons for expensive but not totally stupid prices (twenty quid each maybe)

Phase IV's colour!

Yeah that is gorgeous. Chap, in phase two he meets his father AND HE IS AN EVIL ROBOT! It still manages to be the worst phase, somehow.

It is really poor that this has never been collected. Given that it is 1. Great and 2. by popular writer, you would think that it would make great commercial sense to get it out there.

Embarrassingly, I have only read all of phases one and two, though I have seen bits of three and four. Phase 1 is great, and Phase 2 has the bit about the Black Sun rising.

a) most of it has been collected, twice
b) Zenith

Most of it has been collected, but not for ages and is out of print now.

I've never been able to read it. Never seen it in the states, and that's not for lack of looking.

I have cbrs someplace, but haven't read it yet.

I think your best bet is to scour the back issue sections for copies of the horribly colourised Quality Comics reprints from the early 90s.

xpost

That's a grim proposition, Chap...

I've heard there's copies of the collections warehoused but unreleased due to rights issues. More's the pity.

"Most of it has been collected, but not for ages and is out of print now."

not quite: b) Zenith

"I've heard there's copies of the collections warehoused but unreleased due to rights issues. More's the pity."

only the first one: b) Zenith

OTM on Proposition Grim, too. Much better bet is the 90s issues of Best of 200AD that reprinted Phases 1 and 2 in cheap cheap magazines, two mags per phase IIRC.

Best of 2000AD was a terrific publication.

I've heard there's copies of the collections warehoused but unreleased due to rights issues.

this is the kind of thing that gives creator rights a bad name. What about reader rights?

That's what b1tt@rrent is for?

Are people still using that?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Phase 3 definitely - Interdimensional War, depressed Communist supermen and Tommy and Tammy are slightly too close to one another for comfort...and poor Vertex.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

---------this is the kind of thing that gives creator rights a bad name. What about reader rights?

OTM.

------------Tommy and Tammy are slightly too close to one another for comfort.

I thought that was really cute, and I was about 10 or so and creeped out by sex... I do live in a country in which cousins're allowed to marry, tho

Results rule btw, not sure if I can think of a siller poll

I thought it was kinda sweet that he'd tell her that...But she's you cousin, dude!

"your" that is

Matt M, take your point, but there is something vulgar about reading comics online.

I am now going to start lobbying the authorities to change copyright law so that you lose your rights to stuff if you don't keep them in print. My publisher pal will love this.

So, it seems this is actually happening now, regardless of Morrison's objections:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/05/29/grant-morrison-and-steve-yeowell-informed-about-rebellions-plans-to-publish-the-complete-zenith-by-rebellion-direct-for-100/

At a mere 100 quid a pop!

Presumably there'll be cheaper trade versions out later on, if Morrison doesn't manage to stop this one from being sold? I'd love to get it, but a 100 quid for a 480 page black & white comic seems ridiculous, no matter how "collector's edition" it is. Just to compare, the recent omnibus of Simonson's Thor run had twice as many pages and cost half as much, and it's in colour.

lol at brandon mccarthy

Well the final Phase of Zenith is actually in colour, but yeah, still stupid money to pay for something like this.

What's Moz's issue with all this?

big publisher

freelance writer

disputed rights

no reprints

Yeah, basically all creators working for IPC at that time still had to sign work-for-hire contracts, meaning they surrendered all rights to the properties they created. Morrison's claim is that he never signed any such contract, so the Zenith rights still belongs to him(and presumably McCarthy & Yeowell as well).

Weird - I'm guessing anyone willing to pay £100 has probably t0rrented it already, or is the sort-of GM diehard (i.e. me) who wouldn't consider buying it without his approval on the project (which it sounds like he hasn't given here)

Incidentally, I can't understand the appeal of those giant hardback collections AT ALL -- anyone who can afford one of those motherfuckers is probably at "back problem age" anyway (i.e everyone over 28) (i.e. me).

Giant thick hardbacks are terrible. I've been suckered in by some (and would still buy the HOWARD THE DUCK ONE in a heartbeat.) But I always feel bad reading them.

Giant oversized hardbacks are similarly terrible. I look at them and think "man, they're just a pain to read" so they stay unread in the special shelf I had to lay out because they're so goddamn big.

Never read or torrented ZENITH, though I brought up that possibility years ago. Kinda wonder if it would play out as a legit good comic these days or anything other than a historical curiosity. Found a single issue of the Fleetway/Quality single issue format reprint but it's pretty far down in the two short boxes or so of cheap single issues I've acquired in the last year or so for casual reading. Will get to it...sometime I'm sure. Think Masterman shows up in it, so lemme know if I should bump that up in the rotation or not.

not really as good as Marvelman/Miracleman but still worth the effort to torrent/read, IMO

no Quality comic is worth reading except as a genre exercise in "terrible repro and production"

(and would still buy the HOWARD THE DUCK ONE in a heartbeat.)

interesting given the lack of creator approval discussed here - Gerber chose the material in the Essential B&W paperback, saying it was as close as he and Marvel were ever going to come to his ideal approved collection; then as soon as he died* they rushed out the giant colour everything-ever hardback and claimed it was a heartfelt tribute

*well

Matt, the first three Zenith books are terrific - you'll want to read the fourth, too, but it's a bit throwaway compared to the others.

prob w/ the HTD essential volume is that the artwork is printed slightly smaller than normal comic book page size, at least on my (first?) edition, which afaik is the only printing - have no idea why they did this, it appears to be the only essential volume with repro like this

dunno if it got mentioned anywhere here already but i just noticed on amazon that this is finally getting reprinted.

It's been up on the 2000 AD site for over a year, I hope it actually happens.

Are these the reprints Grant doesn't want to happen?

The all-in-one mail-order-only hardcover of last year was done to see if Grant would sue; as he's apparently decided that it would be throwing good money after bad, they're saying "fuck him" and doing more.

Gotcha.

I have the mail order hardcover and you know what? I'm not entirely sure it's as good as we remember it/legend has it. Maybe I should go again, or break it up into Thrill Powered chunks, but I actually found finishing it a bit of a chore.

I can't imagine reading it all in one go would do it any favours, no

Well it wasn't one go, but it was more than 6-8 pages at a time.

I read it a few years ago and really enjoyed it - the fourth book is a bit of a disappointing downer though - in fact the whole story would probably be better without it.

I got the "Phase I" hardback in the mail, and I though it was... kinda disappointing. I mean, sure, it had enough excitement to keep me turning the page, and maybe if this was my first Morrison comic I'd think differently, but now I just couldn't help but feel like it was a practice run for themes he'd develop more fully in later works. For example, the Many-Angled Ones were like lite versions of the Archons from Invisibles, except with a more explicit Lovecraftian flavour. And Zenith himself reflects Morrison's ongoing interest in pop culture, but at least in this book he's not interesting at all as a character, he doesn't have any personality beyond "naive young pop star". And TBH I felt the twist at the end was kinda stupid and deus-ex-machinaey: why would a human psychological technique like post-hypnotic suggestion work on a god?

As for Yeowell's art, I felt it was kinda stiff and flat too, but I guess that's because this was an early work for him, I certainly like his line in The Invisibles and other DC works. And the writing wasn't all mediocre, I dug Morrison's ideas of what the young superheroes of the 60s have become in the 80s, hopefully those themes will get developed in further books. So I guess I'll keep reading this, presumably it'll get better as it goes on?

I like the first book, but the 2nd and 3rd are much better. The fourth is... inessential - I'd actively avoid it.

I haven't read Zenith for 15 + years and wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't held up that well. I think Tuomas is probably right about it being a testing ground for the ideas that Morrison would develop more fully later on.

Basically the things I liked most in the comic are the ones Morrison hasn't done to death in his later work, i.e. the WWII era superheroics, and the depictions of aging superheroes of the past. I think the latter thing must've been influence by Watchmen and DKR, right? Those two books started in 1986, and Zenith in 1987, so I figure Morrison had the chance to read them while scripting his comic (even though Watchmen's last few issues hadn't yet come out when Zenith started in 2000AD). But Morrison is doing something a bit different here than either Miller and Moore, so the middle-aged characters in Zenith are still interesting... Perhaps the reason he hasn't much returned to this theme is that it would further fuel the "Morrison is a Moore plagiarist" claims?

Besides, Morrison is way more youth-obsessed IMO

Chuck otm btw - 2nd and 3rd volumes much better
But you're also right that there are many of themes Morrison generally does better in later work. Also, I think a lot of UK pop-referencing I didn't get without footnotes.