Reprint This! 6. Zenith

UPDATE: Zenith has been reprinted in a limited-edition omnibus volume by Rebellion, and in a planned follow-up series of four hardcover volumes to be released in 2014-15. Go, buy 'em all!

Reprint This! is a periodic feature where I talk about some out-of-print comic book gems that are not available in collected form for readers to enjoy. This is hoping to let rights owners know that, yes, readers are out here, and we'd like to buy the things we can't get at this time!

Despite such an enormous variety of books available these days, and genuine efforts to present the material in reasonably-priced, archival volumes, there are still countless fabulous series from the US, Britain and Japan which are overdue for new editions. I've selected two dozen titles which should be on bookshelves, but at this time are not.

One missing gem is ZENITH by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell. Zenith is a young pop singer and Earth's only active superhuman. His superpowered parents had died and the rest of their peers from the 1960s had either lost their powers or vanished. But when a Nazi super-soldier from the last days of the war, thought killed when the Allies dropped the first atom bomb on Berlin, resurfaces, it's evident that the past doesn't intend to stay buried...



Zenith was the first major series by Grant Morrison, who would later go on to create many highly-regarded, creator-owned series, most notably The Invisibles, and take over the scripting chores for many of DC and Marvel's top trademark properties.

As an action story, Zenith's just about unbeatable. Morrison's been known to throw so many ideas at the page in recent years that his work is sometimes hard to follow, but Zenith keeps its incredibly interesting plot moving at breakneck speed without losing the audience.

But it's Zenith himself, even more than the plot, that is the most compelling part of the story. Morrison often captures character very well, but rarely does he do it as well as here. Zenith is a spoiled asshole, a quick-witted master of putdowns who's never known loss or failure. And on the one hand, it's great fun watching him get away with the things he says, but on the other, it's even more satisfying when he gets on the receiving end of things, especially some loss that nobody should have to suffer. I also adore the way he will insult every single character in the series right to their face except for Peter St. John, to whom Zenith is deferential and polite, except when St. John isn't around. But since St. John's a telepath, they both know what Zenith really thinks. What a brat!

Steve Yeowell, a master of pacing and shade who rarely receives the praise he deserves, brings a lot to the work, and gives Zenith a flippant attitude and body language, obnoxious but compelling. Yeowell's stark use of solid inks and odd angles in the third storyline, sort of a British "Crisis on Infinite Earths" which features scores of retired comic characters from previous decades, makes the grim imagery look strange and alien. Many fans dislike the coloring, by Gina Hart, in the fourth series, but personally, I quite like it.

Grant Morrison had been selling short scripts to IPC, Quality and D.C. Thomson for most of the 1980s before getting a long series commission from 2000 AD. Zenith, which eventually chalked up close to 100 episodes over a six-year run, bears some surface similarity to Alan Moore's Marvelman (about which, more another time), but both represent some of the best and most honest writing about superheroes in the genre. Titan issued long out-of-print collections which presented the first three storylines of the four book cycle and some of the extra episodes, and looked forward to a big reprint series in 2001. They got as far as printing the new edition of "Phase One" before Morrison sued them, claiming that he, and not 2000 AD, owned the character, and they had no right to license it.

Morrison and Rebellion have sadly been at legal loggerheads for several years about ownership of the character, preventing Morrison from writing new episodes and, critically. preventing anybody from reprinting the existing ones. The dispute is thought to be at a complete impasse, although neither party will go on the record about it, and a formal court challenge has yet to arise. My personal, uninformed, take, is that the publisher can't risk the legal loss, because the negative precedent would encourage the writers and artists, or their families, of pretty much every British comic prior to about 1995 to take the same stance, and so it's simpler to just leave Zenith (and The Journal of Luke Kirby, about which its writer, Alan McKenzie, has made a similar argument) in the drawer. As is often the case in situations like this, the real losers are the readers, because a shelf full of Zenith books and a new story each year would be the greatest thing possible. We'd like to see Zenith again, so how about it, Grant and Rebellion? Y'all have a sitdown once Oxford dries out from the flooding and work it out, guys!



(Originally posted July 27, 2007, 05:05 at hipsterdad's livejournal.)

Reprint This! 5. Black Jack

UPDATE: Black Jack has been reprinted in 17 volumes by Vertical. Go, buy 'em all!

Reprint This! is a periodic feature where I talk about some out-of-print comic book gems that are not available in collected form for readers to enjoy. This is hoping to let rights owners know that, yes, readers are out here, and we'd like to buy the things we can't get at this time!

Despite such an enormous variety of books available these days, and genuine efforts to present the material in reasonably-priced, archival volumes, there are still countless fabulous series from the US, Britain and Japan which are overdue for new editions. I've selected two dozen titles which should be on bookshelves, but at this time are not.

One missing gem is BLACK JACK by Osamu Tezuka. Black Jack is a mysterious doctor, who specializes in bizarre medical mysteries, and who crosses paths with criminals and dangerous fugitives who are willing to pay any price for his service and his discretion...



Black Jack's format is one of 15-page episodes dealing with utterly messed up illnesses and ailments - the sort that would drive Hugh Laurie to the priesthood - and accidents that require the most unusual surgeries ever seen. It's not like it's unrealistic due to a lack of research - Tezuka held a medical degree - but rather, realism is deliberately thrown completely out the window in favor of using the format for parables about greed and the debt one owes society, built around outlandish grotesqueries that are completely captivating.

Just to tell you how nutty this gets, in one of the few stories available in English, Black Jack serves as a supporting character in a story about his favorite sushi chef, who loses both his arms in a freak traffic accident. The contrite driver devotes his life to making up for his crime, and trains under the chef to become his new "arms." Black Jack's services are needed years down the road, when the driver is killed in a later, grisly accident. You can tell where this is going, only if you turn off your common sense circuits and think "utterly insane."

As engrossing as the stories are, the art is its own draw. I've been reading comics for three decades, and Tezuka remains the only artist who has ever tricked my eyes into actually seeing motion on the page. I'm absolutely drawn into Tezuka's weird world of heavy lines, sumptuous detail and stumpy, cartoony-people, and then he pulls an optical illusion and I swear the character on the page just moved. And hey, I'm the sort of guy who drives eighty miles off the interstate to see a gravity hill, so you're damn right I want more Black Jack in print.

Black Jack originally appeared as a weekly series in the pages of Shonen Champion from 1973-1983. Most of Tezuka's enormous output (said to be more than 150,000 pages over a 43-year career) came from short stories or 50-week serials or periodic installments of much larger works, such as Phoenix 2772, which was never actually completed. Black Jack was one of Tezuka's handful of series to be published regularly over a several year period.

You'd think that since Black Jack requires no backstory and has almost no continuity that it would be ideal for repackaging in the US. But only a handful of episodes have been published in this country. Viz released two volumes of translations, in their old "neither-fish-nor-fowl" trade paperback format, which were taller, wider and had fewer pages (around 160) than standard Japanese digests, but shorter and narrower than everybody else's graphic novels, priced at a too-high $15.95, and with the artwork flipped so the book's spine is on the right. Viz has done right with some of its older properties, issuing them in the more common size and under $10, but Black Jack hasn't been seen again since they switched formats. We'd like to see the rest of the series, so how about it, Viz?



(Originally posted July 17, 2007, 08:13 at hipsterdad's livejournal.)

(Update 10/07: Vertical has announced they have licensed the series for North American publication!!)

(Update 4/08: First look at Vertical's design for the series.)

Reprint This! 4. Axel Pressbutton

Reprint This! is a periodic feature where I talk about some out-of-print comic book gems that are not available in collected form for readers to enjoy. You might consider it a companion to my Weekly Comics Hype, which is taking a short summer vacation, except while that's preaching to a potential audience, this is hoping to let rights owners know that, yes, readers are out here, and we'd like to buy the things we can't get at this time!

Despite such an enormous variety of books available these days, and genuine efforts to present the material in reasonably-priced, archival volumes, there are still countless fabulous series from the US, Britain and Japan which are overdue for new editions. I've selected two dozen titles which should be on bookshelves, but at this time are not.

One missing gem is AXEL PRESSBUTTON by Steve Moore and Steve Dillon, among others. This is a science fiction serial about a cyborg gun for hire who lost more than half his body to a carnivorous plant. He has teamed with Mysta Mistralis, a clone with an unfortunate past.



Axel Pressbutton originally appeared as a character in a monthly comedy strip called "Three-Eyed McGurk and His Death Squad Commandos" in the fanzine Dark Star in 1979, and later resurfaced in a weekly strip called "The Stars My Degradation" in the pages of the music paper Sounds in 1980. Many of these strips were drawn by Alan Moore, who's probably better known for some writin' you might have read, under the pseudonym Curt Vile.

In 1982, Axel was one of the featured stars in Dez Skinn's anthology book Warrior, now teamed in 6-8 page episodes with a troubleshooting lady named Mysta Mystralis, the Laser Eraser, for more traditional, serialized adventures. Here, the odd balance of SF action and sexy, juvenile humor really meshed well. The episodes were originally drawn by Steve Dillon, but his other commitments forced him to drop out after a year. Pressbutton appeared sporadically after that, with occasional other appearances by the bizarre supporting character Zirk occasionally filling in. Zirk's artists included Garry Leach and Brian Bolland.

Most, if not all, of the Warrior episodes were colorized, badly, and reprinted in US format by Eclipse Comics in a six-issue series. A year later, new episodes began in another Eclipse title called Laser Eraser and Pressbutton. This doesn't seem to have lasted for much longer than six issues, but the artists included Dillon, David Lloyd and Mike Collins. I think these were Steve Moore's last comics work for many years; he went on to the editorial staff of Fortean Times, where he spent much of the 1990s investigating cryptids and crop circles, before returning to comics with work for Rebellion and for America's Best in 2001.

So you see, there is a variety of material out there, in a number of formats and from a number of publishers. And there have been further whispers of new material; both Rufus Dayglo and Jon Haward have been rumored to be working on new episodes and prepping some sort of collection. But honestly, somebody need to put this all together, from the start. Not only because you get some rare work by so many well-known artists, but the only time this rare Alan Moore artwork has been reprinted has been in samples in those biographies and tributes that came out in 2003. I'd love to see all of those again. I'm not sure who actually owns the rights; they may be shared between Steve Moore and all the artists, much as Marvelman was between its creators. But whoever's out there, how about it?



(Originally posted July 09, 2007, 03:09 at hipsterdad's livejournal.)