Terrance Zdunich is one of the master minds behind, “Repo: The Genetic Opera“. Recently he has journeyed in to the world of comic book creation. His 12 issue comic, “The Molting” is set to release a new chapter every six weeks. Here I review chapter 1: “Guilty Susie”.

We open the story with a funeral and a court hearing. We find out that Susie (12) and her brother Tony (14) have just lost their mother. Being under age, the judge rules that they will live with their aunt and uncle until they are legal age. After, 1/2 of the estate will go to them and half to the children. As soon as Susie and Tony get to their new home they figure out their care takers are greedy, cruel and would rather see the children dead. I do not want to give away too much of the story for those who have not yet read it. It is an introduction and sets us up for what’s to come. The issue ends with Susie hitchhiking a ride from a car of musicians/hippy looking guys. It’s the type of ending that makes you say, “what happens next!?”. Terrance does not use tons of dialogue. I have read many comic books that are bogged down with dialouge and leave nothing to the imaginations. I want to be able to get inside a characters head and Terrance let’s us do that but having characters speak very little. The other thing is, they don’t need to speak, you more or less know how they are feeling and you are able to escape into their world. the last thing I will say about the story is, don’t get too attached to certain characters.

I really liked how Terrance switched up the panel layouts he used. There are some unique ones I have not seen before, but he still makes them easy to follow. I’ve seen many comics that had pages and panels that were impossible to follow. As I mentioned before Terrance does not use a lot of dialogue. One of the reasons this works so well is because of the art. He could have not put one word in the issue and just by the art you would be able to know what’s going on, get a feel for the character’s emotions and intentions. Terrance describes the art as, “a southern gothic version of Little Orphan Annie”. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about is that he draws black lines in certain place, such as Susie’s face in one photo. I felt it was too distracting and did not like how it looked.

Availability: Currently Guilty Susie is only available for a limited time through Terrance’s blog (www.terrancezdunich.com). Personally I look forward to future chapters. Is issue one is any indication, Terrance has a penchant for ending his chapters with cliffhangers that will keep us begging for more. That, fellow readers, is how to write a comic and please your audience.

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