Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinWhere legends live since 1969

The “spooky guy in pinstripes” was 9-Jack-9, I have more to say about him in a later post.

§ February 24th, 2023 § Filed under indies § 5 Comments

So Zot! is a solidly satisfying read from beginning to end, not leaving you hanging at the end of issue #36 (or even really at the end of the webcomic), but there is one huge dangling thread left unaddressed. SPOILERS ahead for Zot! #27 (1990):

It’s New Year’s Eve on Zot’s Earth, and Jenny, her brother Butch (who is a monkey in Zot’s world, long story) and their pal Woody are visiting from “our” Earth to enjoy the celebrations. Everyone (or at least everyone with this particular view of the moon) watches the countdown, though just prior to this there is a discussion between Zot and Jenny as to when they actually met. Jenny believes it’s 1966 on Zot’s world, as the two met “a year and a half ago” when it was 1965. Zot says no, that was 1964, it’s 1965 now, and it’s about to turn 1966. And then….

It quickly becomes clear that everyone from “our” Earth saw the year “change” from 1965 to 1965, whereas everyone from Zot’s Earth saw something different:

Later, Zot’s Uncle Max hypothesizes about what happened, addressing it in such a way that it makes it seem like there was something wrong with Jenny and the rest’s perceptions:

…which I always liked as a storytelling choice. From our presumably objection observation as “reader,” the information we’re given by the story is that the year did in fact fail to change. It’s possible we’re seeing it through Jenny’s subjective point of view, but I don’t believe there’s any evidence in-story to indicate what we’re seeing is “wrong.”

Max continues:

…which probably seems at least somewhat plausible to the characters in the narrative, since Zot’s Earth is a sci-fi wonderland and Jenny’s Earth still has crime and pollution and grape-flavored Gatorade and other serious problems.

It’s bit of a frustrating set-up, in that we’re left in the position of knowing there’s some kind of mystery here, and the assumption made by the characters contradicts the reader’s observations. And that’s where this particular plot element stops, as we’re off to the concluding run of “Earth Stories,” where Zot and Jenny are cut off from Zot’s world.

I was trying to find the particular citation, which I thought was either in the story itself, a reply in a later letter column, or in an interview with Scott McCloud, where it was said this revelation may point to an “artificiality” about Zot’s Earth, but I couldn’t find it in time for what passes for a deadline around here. But if what’s left of my brain is remembering that correctly, that may be our one clue as to what’s going on. The hows and whys and whats as to what would have made that other Earth (in opposition to Max’s idea) a copy of “our” Earth…who can say?

Well, Scott can say, but I don’t know if he ever intends to return to that particular milieu. (I have an idea how to bring it back, but unless I am somehow gifted the keys to that castle, I’ll have to save it for my extensive line of Zot! fanfic, where they all meet and hang out with their new best friend, the incredibly talented and handsome Spike Merling.)

Thus, fair warning to anyone coming to Zot! for the first time…well, one, you shouldn’t have read this, I warned you at the start, and two, you’ll end up thinking about this bit of business for the next 33 years, like a certain unnamed comics blogger/retailer might have done.

I did come across another potential future story idea addressed by Scott in the Zot! letter columns that didn’t (or not yet, he said optimistically) appear in a comic, but I’ll save that for next week! Tune in next time, same Zot! channel!