Scott McCloud is best known for his excellent comic book about comic-book theory, Understanding Comics. It's unfortunate that he's spent the 10 years or so since Understanding's publication producing two horrible sequels: Reinventing Comics (boring and outdated the moment it was published) and Making Comics (painfully unimaginative—the exact opposite of what that sort of book should be). But before McCloud became one of the world's most blowhardiest comic-book experts, he made a comic for the (sadly long-since-defunct) publisher Eclipse Comics, called Zot!

Zot is a superhero from an alternate dimension who falls in love with a girl from our world named Jenny Weaver. Most of the conflicts in their relationship have to do with the fact that the man might as well be from Mars: Zot's home planet is an unbelievably optimistic earth high on the lasting effects of world peace and packed to the rafters with harmless adventure. This nearly 600-page collection of Zot! comics produced between 1987 and 1991 is surprisingly cohesive; the first half of the book consists of dumb superhero fun and the second half is a more thoughtful and (sometimes too) serious examination of the book's supporting cast. It exemplifies the problem that almost all comics creators—from Jack Cole to Jaime Hernandez—wrestle with over the course of their careers: In a medium that's especially good at fun, sometimes the creators' desire to be taken seriously can overwhelm the reader in issue-heavy drama.

But the balance works here, and young McCloud's exuberance can be felt everywhere in this book; it would make a wonderful gift for a young reader looking for something a little more substantial than your standard manga. It's a shame that long-winded older McCloud inserts his notes between each chapter, telling the reader what worked and what didn't work with the previous section. This analysis murders the narrative flow in some parts of the book, and would probably do better as a series of extensive endnotes. Still, the cerebral nature of the older McCloud can't completely dampen the enthusiasm of his younger self, and it's easy enough to flip past those text-heavy, self-referential passages and on to the next adventure.