Posted in: Comics | Tagged: grant morrison, richard starkings, steve yeowell, Zoids
The First 6 Pages of Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's Zoids
One upon a time, a long time, ago, Grant Morrison wrote the Zoids comic book strip for British publishing spinoff Marvel UK, based on the wind-up modular toyline. Appearing as a back-up strip in the Secret Wars weekly Marvel UK title, it later took the co-lead in the Spider-Man And Zoids weekly comic book. The strip was then cancelled as the toys hadn't taken off like Transformers had. The comic told a tale of warring robots on a planet, with crash-landed humans trying to survive, and work out what was going on with the planet. We got a combination of Aliens, Transformers and Doctor Who.
But there was more. Before the cancellation, it was planned for Zoids to go solo as a series with Morrison and Steve Yeowell, and a full issue was created – but never published. Letterer Richard Starkings, with a long history at Marvel UK is treating us all in lockdown to that unpublished comic book from decades ago. It has previously been posted online – but not at this high resolution – and we only got half of the comic before. It seems now that we will be getting The Full Morrison. Why not follow along?
Grant Morrison would, of course, go on to take similar themes into Animal Man, Doom Patrol, The Invisibles, Arkam Asylum and The Filth. Whether that's the stylised journey of a hero trying to discover his purpose in the wider scale of things, hidden histories in this case literally beneath the surface, alien perspectives on reality, and the spiritual evolution of the main character through the intervention, experience and history of others, as well as the removal of individuality by the machine. Yeowell was Morrison's artistic collaborator on Zenith, Invisibles, Sebastian O and more.
Look for Richard Starkings to keep posting more of these on Twitter as we remain locked down. I wonder if Grant Morrison or Steve Yeowell would care to share their own memories or what once was – and then never saw the day?