No. 0 is where Mr. Sketchum defines the mission statement for "Zap" Comics: Will contain all the latest in humor! Audacious! Irrelevant! You bet! (Mr. Sketchum looks a lot like a young R. Crumb.)

Later we meet Mr. Natural, an ex-taxicab driver from Aphganistan (sic) and a contemporary Great Man. He has been meditating in the desert of Death Valley for forty days. He encounters his friend Flakey and attempts to enlighten him with a koan in words inimitably his own, but that has been retold by Alan Watts in conventional terms more appropriate for these pages:

In Buddhism there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you're tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.

Flakey responds, Gee...all that's kind of hard to remember...

Flakey is a Man of the West and doesn't "get it." He is not without resources, though. Before Mr. Natural notices him, Flakey announces his presence by dousing Mr. Natural from a fire hose. Not your usual desert greeting!

They must be near Owen's Lake, the center of the California Water Wars, retold in the 1974 movie, Chinatown, and a symbol of Western technology and moral values. A sharp contrast 'twixt East and West!

Mr. Sketchum says, Things like that are happening all the time in these comic strips....Wow! Don't miss a single issue!

Yes, don't! ( )