Zenith speculation starts over at The Beat

[Eric Plumrose]

part of Robinsons stick to beat was that some of the characters she used appeared previously, so she was able to prove ownership.

Is this also true of Zenith? Are there any appearances by the character prior to his debut in 2000 AD?

There's an interview in AFTER-IMAGE where Morrison expressed his initial concern Tharg was gonna muck around with the strip, the same way various FUTURE SHOCKS had ended up reading like "Janet and John with brain damage". The impression I still have from that interview is that ZENITH was something Morrison 'gave' to Tharg, as opposed to being created specifically for 2000 AD.

[Frank]

part of Robinsons stick to beat was that some of the characters she used appeared previously, so she was able to prove ownership.

Is this also true of Zenith? Are there any appearances by the character prior to his debut in 2000 AD?

There's an interview in AFTER-IMAGE where Morrison expressed his initial concern Tharg was gonna muck around with the strip, the same way various FUTURE SHOCKS had ended up reading like "Janet and John with brain damage". The impression I still have from that interview is that ZENITH was something Morrison 'gave' to Tharg, as opposed to being created specifically for 2000 AD.

I love Morrison's interviews, but the correspondence between actual events and the view of reality expressed therein is best summed up by the frequent descriptions of his contact with supernatural and extra-terrestrial entities. Despite Morrison's recent insistence that having a strip in his local paper and scripting the odd Starblazer or Future Shock meant he and Anal Moore enjoyed parity in the literary realm, I'm not certain it was within Morrison's power to 'give' or refuse a paying publisher his services at that time; he was pitching ideas and taking commissions the same as any other starving freelancer, and I've never seen any indication that Zenith (or anything like it) appeared in Morrison's small press work.

As Jim mentioned on the previous page, Brendan McCarthy was commissioned by 2000ad editorial to create the characters, so they certainly didn't exist in print anywhere prior to that. In the introduction to the first collected volume of Zenith Morrison is disarmingly honest in describing how the pressure of deadlines and being asked to come up with the comic's first superhero strip as his own first major work led him to panic and pilfer freely from popular culture; the onset of powers arriving with puberty from The X-Men, the dark Gods from Lovecraft, Eddie Clocherty from Tutti Frutti ... and that's before you get to Brendan McCarthy's own Paradax or Moore's Miracleman. Doesn't sound to me as if he had either the foundations of the story or the characters ready to go.

[TordelBack]

All true, Sauchie, but none of this changes the fact that Morrison is simply reversing and exploiting the same kind of soulless contract-related guff that has screwed everyone from Siegel and Schuster to Moore and Gibbons.  If everyone is going to be held to "tough luck, you signed the contract, swings and roundabouts, no sympathy here bud" attitude that corporations and most of the internet is so fond of, then it seems only fair that in one of the few situations where no contract can be found, the creators get to turn the tables and act like equally pedantic arseholes.

But for everyone's sake Morrison, just let them reprint the bloody thing!

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

All true, Sauchie, but none of this changes the fact that Morrison is simply reversing and exploiting the same kind of soulless contract-related guff that has screwed everyone from Siegel and Schuster to Moore and Gibbons.  If everyone is going to be held to "tough luck, you signed the contract, swings and roundabouts, no sympathy here bud" attitude that corporations and most of the internet is so fond of, then it seems only fair that in one of the few situations where no contract can be found, the creators get to turn the tables and act like equally pedantic arseholes.

But for everyone's sake Morrison, just let them reprint the bloody thing!

Exactly right.

[Eric Plumrose]

Doesn't sound to me as if he had either the foundations of the story or the characters ready to go.

Well, this is why I'm asking. The interview was probably from the late '80s and included an inchoate drawing of Zenith by Morrison's own diabollockal hand. Is his claim of ownership really 'just' a case of not signing away his rights? Or was a legal precedent set by conceding, yes, Hilary Robinson does indeed own some of her 2000 AD work due to the characters having appeared previously in creator-owned material?

[Frank]

All true, Sauchie, but none of this changes the fact that Morrison is simply reversing and exploiting the same kind of soulless contract-related guff that has screwed everyone from Siegel and Schuster to Moore and Gibbons.  If everyone is going to be held to "tough luck, you signed the contract, swings and roundabouts, no sympathy here bud" attitude that corporations and most of the internet is so fond of, then it seems only fair that in one of the few situations where no contract can be found, the creators get to turn the tables and act like equally pedantic arseholes.

But for everyone's sake Morrison, just let them reprint the bloody thing!

Course not, and aye respectively. Morrison's dramatised a more nuanced understanding of the potentially Mephistophelean compact which work for hire contracts entail - and the motivations of creators - in his Superman work:

[Sideshow Bob]

Just for info guys...
If anyone is looking for copies of Zenith....There are several on ebay at the moment..
Just type in 'Zenith graphic novels' and about 7 or so entries will come up...
Cheers

[Richmond Clements]

Just for info guys...
If anyone is looking for copies of Zenith....There are several on ebay at the moment..
Just type in 'Zenith graphic novels' and about 7 or so entries will come up...
Cheers

Or they could wait until I put mine up there..! ;-)

[Sideshow Bob]

Or....if you want to wait a little while ... Richmond Clements is going to be putting his up there...

[Richmond Clements]

Good man!

[vzzbux]

AHHH. Another Zenith speculation thread. These must appear at least twice a year.




V

[GordonR]

Nah, seems like wild speculation to me.

Doubt this situation will ever get resolved.

Uh-huh. What's that you were saying?

[Colin YNWA]

AHHH. Another Zenith speculation thread. These must appear at least twice a year.

Yeah but from now on we'll have to speculate about the about when the paperback release is coming out!

[Judge Brian]

Now maybe I can find a volume 5 for $20 or less.

[Frank]

Nah, seems like wild speculation to me. Doubt this situation will ever get resolved.

Uh-huh. What's that you were saying?

The second part of his second statement is still valid.