Zenith returns in Prog 2050!

[Frank]

I'm old and hopelessly crusty, but I wasn't wailing why can't Fifth Harmony make proper music, like The Prodigy. I'm saying the biggest pop stars on Earth (Swifty, 1D?) no longer impinge on the mass consciousness in the way Thriller-era Mike Jackson once did.*

Most kids no longer construct their personal or tribal identity around listening to particular kinds of music. That's probably a good thing, but it has fundamentally changed what music means to them and - where this is relevant to Zenith 2017 - what it means to be a pop star.

Pop Star is now just one of the types of celebrities kids grow up wanting to be. Zzzenith.com hinted at this loss of cultural import by making him some kind of .com billionaire with his own Osbornes/I'm A Celebrity show. Maybe Matt Smith's story will go further down this route, but I no longer care.


* Partly because there are no longer four TV stations and two national radio stations. Even if you despised Deeelite or the latest Stock Aitken and Waterman project, you (and probably your Mum, via Top Of The Pops) knew who they were and had some kind of opinion on them.

People can now filter out anything they don't like, which might be a good thing but - again, relevant to Zenith - it changes the status and role of the pop star in the culture.

[robert_ellis]

I always loved Phase IV - genuinely creepy & full of atmosphere. I quite liked the colouring. Steve Yeowell seemed to be moving away from large areas of black & I liked the new look. Much like Watchmen it's a complete story - it doesn't lend itself to more tales.

[matty_ae]

BEFORE ZENITH: CLOUD NINE
If Grant wrote it, I'd buy it.

[Frank]

... like Watchmen it's a complete story - it doesn't lend itself to more tales.

Zenith doesn't have the horological precision of Moore's Magnum (space) Octopus, but it is all about structure. And that structure is a closed loop.

From first panel to last, Zenith was all about the Lloigor - who they were, where they came from, what their plan was. Even Phase II, which initially seemed like a detour.

Which takes us back to my point about the difference between Zenith and episodic strips like Stronty Dog. If every Stront story was about the Stix bros, it would be boring. If Zenith isn't about the Lloigor, I'm not sure what the point is.

And their story is done.

[Steven Denton]

I don't think Zenith is Limited to or by the Lloigor at all. He's far more of a swipe at pop culture then he is a clockwork deconstruction of the superhero genera (Watchmen). Zenith is a prism to view the modern world not a meta-critique of a medium or genera. 

[matty_ae]

I've re-read Frank's opinion and it is very accurate and well-thought through.
The story - the Llogior's story is done.

You could still use the character to hold a prism up to modern culture but it would be nothing really more than a bit of a two dimensional use of the character = Zzzzenith.com

[Steven Denton]

I think it's like the first few Strontium Dog Stories being about the Stix then realising, maybe they don't always have to be and there is more to the idea then one limiting antagonist.

I got board of the Lloigor well before the end of book 3 but I didn't get board with Zenith. I think the only thing limiting him is peoples fear of bad writers and lack of imagination. Zzzzenith.com is not a proper story, it was an awful throw away 'gag' with about as much subtitle as Big Dave.

If you are going to dismiss Zenith as being a way of commenting on modern culture with fiction, you are by extension saying it's impossible to make a story that comments on modern culture because Zzzzenith.com exists. which is ridiculous. one unimaginative strip does not prove there is no such thing as imagination.

[TordelBack]

Hmmm, this is a bit of a puzzler.  Zenith (Robert McDowell himself) is less of a protagonist and more an eye-catching element in other people's plans, all of which circle around and depend upon the Lloigor: so there's an argument that the story that his world exists to tell is done, but it's not really Robert's story. This may be one reason why I like Phase II best, which is the one where (despite sitting around a lot) Zenith appears to have awareness of his situation and some semblance of control over it.  For the rest he's just going where he's sent (or not) and doing what he's told (or not).

The character himself probably does have more to say, but it would be a very different strip. 

[dweezil2]

I could definitely see Zenith continuing as a character as I still think there's milage in him, not sure I'd want it without Morrison or Yeowell's involvement though.

[Proudhuff]

SLÁINE // ARCHON by Pat Mills (w) Simon Davis (a) Ellie De Ville (l)
INDIGO PRIME // A DYING ART by John Smith, Kek-W (w) Lee Carter (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SINISTER DEXTER // DOWN IN THE DUMPS by Dan Abnett (w) Steve Yeowell (a) john Charles (c) Ellie De Ville (l)
THE FALL OF DEADWORLD // HOME by Kek-W (w) Dave Kendall (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

So there's over half the Prog I'll be skipping... Why Tharg? Why? let it go! Stop milking a dead horse...

[Frank]

... the only thing limiting (Zenith) is peoples fear of bad writers and lack of imagination.

Well, yeah.* There are dozens of stock plots into which you could chuck Zenith ** but trying to fight against the loss of an author with such a distinctive voice and the strip's defining villains calls for Hotspur-like levels of suicidal self sacrifice.

We're talking as if Tharg's announced a new 24 part epic, but he might just want a new strip to bung in the back of another book repackaging the old material.

Letting Yeowell recoup some of the cash he missed out on during the decades when Zenith was out of print seems like the best justification for this strip or any future continuation of the story. I can't get excited about Zenith 2017, but that image looks fucking deadly. ***


*  Although Tharg could entrust the boy McDowell to Rob Williams or/and Al Ewing - two talented, imaginative authors who have demonstrated the ability to take on established superhero characters and deliver witty commentary on pop culture - and still end up with a pony. Come to think of it, Zenith is probably the only non-Dredd IP Tharg owns that might tempt those two back.

** As TordelBack points out, Zenith's only real function is spouting snark from the sidelines. He's the comic relief - the Ukko, Walter, or Grobbendonk of his own strip. He could crack wise through any number of Bond/Marvel movie plots, but I don't see the point. It would just be more for the sake of more.

*** Yeowell would win my vote for most misused artist on Tharg's books. Not The Mighty One's fault, I suppose - I doubt he's inundated with scripts that call for stylishly rendered monochrome depictions of contemporary humans in real world settings, but that's what Yeowell was born to do 

[JLC]

SLÁINE // ARCHON by Pat Mills (w) Simon Davis (a) Ellie De Ville (l)
INDIGO PRIME // A DYING ART by John Smith, Kek-W (w) Lee Carter (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SINISTER DEXTER // DOWN IN THE DUMPS by Dan Abnett (w) Steve Yeowell (a) john Charles (c) Ellie De Ville (l)
THE FALL OF DEADWORLD // HOME by Kek-W (w) Dave Kendall (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

So there's over half the Prog I'll be skipping... Why Tharg? Why? let it go! Stop milking a dead horse...

Which ones will you be skipping?

[The Corinthian]

Barely remember Zenith, but read part 4 on the catch-up recently. The colouring didn't do it any favours.

I remember a 'Comics International' interview with Richard Burton from mid-1991 - i.e. a few months after Tooth had gone full colour but a year before Phase IV was published - where he said that Phase IV was one of the forthcoming strips that would still run in black-and-white.

Obviously something changed in the subsequent year, and it would be hugely ironic if it was because Fleetway thought it would be easier to sell a graphic novel that way.

[Fungus]

SLÁINE // ARCHON by Pat Mills (w) Simon Davis (a) Ellie De Ville (l)
INDIGO PRIME // A DYING ART by John Smith, Kek-W (w) Lee Carter (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SINISTER DEXTER // DOWN IN THE DUMPS by Dan Abnett (w) Steve Yeowell (a) john Charles (c) Ellie De Ville (l)
THE FALL OF DEADWORLD // HOME by Kek-W (w) Dave Kendall (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

So there's over half the Prog I'll be skipping... Why Tharg? Why? let it go! Stop milking a dead horse...

Which ones will you be skipping?

[Steven Denton]

... the only thing limiting (Zenith) is peoples fear of bad writers and lack of imagination.

Well, yeah.* There are dozens of stock plots into which you could chuck Zenith ** but trying to fight against the loss of an author with such a distinctive voice and the strip's defining villains calls for Hotspur-like levels of suicidal self sacrifice.

We're talking as if Tharg's announced a new 24 part epic, but he might just want a new strip to bung in the back of another book repackaging the old material.

Letting Yeowell recoup some of the cash he missed out on during the decades when Zenith was out of print seems like the best justification for this strip or any future continuation of the story. I can't get excited about Zenith 2017, but that image looks fucking deadly. ***


*  Although Tharg could entrust the boy McDowell to Rob Williams or/and Al Ewing - two talented, imaginative authors who have demonstrated the ability to take on established superhero characters and deliver witty commentary on pop culture - and still end up with a pony. Come to think of it, Zenith is probably the only non-Dredd IP Tharg owns that might tempt those two back.

** As TordelBack points out, Zenith's only real function is spouting snark from the sidelines. He's the comic relief - the Ukko, Walter, or Grobbendonk of his own strip. He could crack wise through any number of Bond/Marvel movie plots, but I don't see the point. It would just be more for the sake of more.

*** Yeowell would win my vote for most misused artist on Tharg's books. Not The Mighty One's fault, I suppose - I doubt he's inundated with scripts that call for stylishly rendered monochrome depictions of contemporary humans in real world settings, but that's what Yeowell was born to do

You keep assuming that new stories would be generic crap. That's what I take issue with.

I Absolutely loved zenith when I first read it. it blew my 11 or 12 year old mind but nostalgia aside. Grant Morison has his ticks (which you could call a distinctive voice) but Zenith is NOT a staggering work of literary originality. it's not Samuel Becket or James Joyce, It's a knock off Alan more with a little HP Lovecraft, brilliantly repackaged for the Stock Aitken and Waterman generation.

It's fashionable these days to assume the only people who can handle a property are the original creators. how did that work out for the Phantom Menace and Rouge One?