This mammoth collection contains 5 years of Zot! comics plus commentary by the author. I was entirely unfamiliar with this comic since in those years I was busy caring for my then small children, not reading comics. The beginning editions were so-so. Girl (Jenny) meets superhero (Zot) from an alternate Earth in another dimension. Superhero fights bad guys on his Earth and takes girl and her friends on escapades on the alternate Earth. In later editions McCloud explores the lives of Jenny's Earth friends. Zot has been trapped in our dimension and attempts to fight the crime that is found everywhere with disastrous results. On his world the crime is confined to acts by specific evil individuals he can fight one on one. In our dimension he learns about poverty, racism, drug abuse, and street crime. These editions also cover other weightier topics like divorce, alcoholic parents, gay-bashing, coming out, and teen sex. The section titled "Earth Stories" is by far the best part of the book. McCloud's commentary covers the evolution of the comic.
Side note: I kept seeing the name of the editor, cat yronwode, in this book and it took quite awhile for me to figure out why I knew that name. Eventually it dawned on me that while I'm not sure I've actually met her, she does attend a con in California that I have attended and owns a little shop there.
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