The Complete Zenith

[TordelBack]

Gaiman's no fool, and his approach is the correct one:  don't like it, move on sharpish. I've said it before, but if you are entering into a work arrangement where you expect to see anything other than a straight cheque for the work done, you would get yourself a written agreement - especially something as complex and open-ended as reprint fees, foreign editions, IP ownership... 

I can't believe Morrison is/was any more of a fool than Gaiman, and the very existence of the Complete Zenith suggests that he wasn't. 

[13school]

Gaiman had already had an extensive career as a freelance journalist by the time he entered comics, so it's probably reasonable to assume he was a bit more clued-in as to the importance of retaining (or being paid extra for) various rights than a lot of the people working in comics at the time.

By the time of his 2000ad work Gaiman had done celebrity interviews that he (in theory) could repackage into a book and sell to a publisher, whereas the idea of taking a bunch of Future Shocks and getting DC to put them out probably would have seemed unlikely to many creators (again, at the time).

Though I remember at least one older interview where Gaiman said he left 2000ad because one of his scripts had been heavily re-written without his input. Considering that 2000ad (and British comics in general) at that stage was largely seen just as a stepping stone to the US market, if he could already get work at DC his sticking with 2000ad seems a little unlikely just on career terms. And Gaiman's always had one eye on his career.

[Frank]

Gaiman ... was a bit more clued-in as to the importance of retaining (or being paid extra for) various rights than a lot of the people working in comics at the time

... but not Morrison. He'd been hanging out with 2000ad creators at conventions since the early eighties, and it's stretching credulity to suggest he was entirely ignorant of the way it and EVERY OTHER UK COMIC at that time treated staff. The way publishers like IPC and Thomson treated creators was shameful, and I'd be on Morrison's side if it wasn't for the cupidity of his insistence that labour conditions on the Kings Reach Tower plantation were a revelation to him.

[13school]

I tend to think of it as Morrison seeing Zenith as nothing more than a paycheck / disposable work to get his name out there to DC, and therefore not really caring about the rights situation at IPC at the time. People who work for 2000ad get jobs at DC, therefore the trade-off for signing your rights away is getting work at DC.

Of course, as the years pass and Zenith actually looks like it might be more than just embarrassing early work / a stepping stone to the States and has value in its own right, it's not that surprising Morrison takes more of an interest in it.

[GordonR]

I tend to think of it as Morrison seeing Zenith as nothing more than a paycheck / disposable work to get his name out there to DC, and therefore not really caring about the rights situation at IPC at the time. People who work for 2000ad get jobs at DC, therefore the trade-off for signing your rights away is getting work at DC.

Of course, as the years pass and Zenith actually looks like it might be more than just embarrassing early work / a stepping stone to the States and has value in its own right, it's not that surprising Morrison takes more of an interest in it.

Nonsense. It's far too strong a piece of work for the reductive/dismissive argument you want to construct around it. Yes, Grant wanted to work for the US market, and, yes, Zenith was what got him there, but it's also clearly a work he cared a lot about. You can see it in the early character designs he created for the strip, and in the far more disciplined plotting that it features, compared to his previous work.

If it was only a means to an end, then why is he still writing it on 1989/90, when he's already a success in the US? Why does he return to it again even later on with Phase IV, when he's even more successful elsewhere?  Why didn't he walk away from it with a disinterested shrug after Phase II, if it was a paycheque/disposable work that had already achieved its purpose to get him where he wanted to be?  (In this alternative universe, Mark Millar would surely have taken up the reins on it, and, indeed I seem to remember some vague plan at one point for Mark to do a Zenith spin-off strip, but that's a different story...)

[13school]

Sorry if I've come across as dismissing Zenith as anything less than the great story it is, or if I've slagged off Morrison's career in any way. I'm probably far too influenced by his Titan volume introductions and the "Drivel" he was writing for Speakeasy at the time, which gave off the impression that a lot of his commercial work (inc Arkham Asylum) were written more for career moves while his real artistic thrust was writing plays, smaller comic work, etc.

I'd never suggest that Morrison was even remotely hack-like in his approach to his writing, but it's perfectly possible for him to both put his very best efforts into a series and hope it might be a launching pad to bigger and better things down the line.

(though I'm sure there's a number of early 90s interviews floating around where he talks about having to wrap Zenith up with Phase 4 as something of a chore, as he felt its time had passed and he'd moved on personally.)

[Frank]

It isn't necessary to construct Morrison as a cynical hack with no creative investment in Zenith whatsoever to put forward the argument that a freelance writer always keeps as many potential revenue streams open as possible. Nobody ever does anything for a single, unambiguous reason.

[13school]

I tend to think of it as Morrison seeing Zenith as nothing more than a paycheck / disposable work to get his name out there to DC.

With the benefit of extracting my head from my arse, I'd change this line to "I tend to think of it as Morrison seeing Zenith as something that could, if done right, get his name out there to DC."

[Hawkmumbler]

Can Molch-R confirm if the final volune will feature the one shots and text story? I would assume it will but just to be certain...

[IndigoPrime]

I'd hope the one-shots would be in-sequence, rather than bunged at the end. (I'm... less fussed, let's say, about text stories.)

[Molch-R]

The books will have some of the extras, but not all of them. As to where they will appear, a decision hasn't been taken on that as of yet.

[robert_ellis]

It's great to have Zenith on the shelf but it feels like there's something missing...

[IndigoPrime]

The books will have some of the extras, but not all of them. As to where they will appear, a decision hasn't been taken on that as of yet.

To my mind, the only really important thing is to ensure anything critical to the ongoing narrative is in sequence. Any more incidental stuff doesn't matter so much. A (rare) example of where Rebellion unfortunately got that wrong is in the third Nemesis volume, where the Winter Special story about [spoiler]Candida being freed from her madness by Nemesis[/spoiler] is placed in the extras, yet it's actually a pivotal plot point that's referenced in the main arc.

[Hawkmumbler]

Surely Zzzenith.com is just as imporant. Where else will you see [spoiler]Robot Archie violate Madona[/spoiler]?

On second thoughts....

[IndigoPrime]

Wasn't it [spoiler]Britney Spears[/spoiler]? I actually quite liked that strip—it was to the 2000s what Phase IV was to the 1990s and the rest of Zenith was to the 1980s.