The Molting #1: Guilty Susie

The Molting #1 (of 12)
“Chapter 1: Guilty Susie”
Writer/Illustrator: Terrance Zudnich (Scary Stud of the Year 2008)
Colorist: Brian Johnson
Designer/Letterer: Oceano Ransford

Indie comics is, to be blunt, a sucker’s game these days. The days of Dave Sim and Jeff Smith are long gone. The Direct market contracts more and more every year, plenty of small scale titles are fighting for catalog space with no way to beat the stranglehold Diamond Distributors holds on the thousands of comic stores left in America. To self-publish, and self-distribute, takes a certain sort of madness, or major balls. Not to mention serious cabbage...

Terrance Zudnich is either crazy or has major balls, and has probably got some disposable income. The co-creator/co-star of Repo! The Genetic Opera (and veteran storyboard artist) has written, drawn, self-published (in color!), and self-distributed the first issue in what promises to be a 12-issue “portrait of a dysfunctional family in the early 90s”, The Molting.

The Molting starts off with a typical gothic horror setup. In Muscoy in 19661, The Deveraux children, Anthony and Susana, are placed in the custody of their aunt and uncle following their parents’ death. It may not surprise you that the Thompsons, their relatives, do not have their best interests at heart. In fact, the Thompsons are after their parents’ money. If you didn’t get that from the back of the book, which gives 80% of the plot away, you’ll certainly get it from the first page showing them, a monstrously obese, horn rimmed glasses wearing woman in a wheelchair and her dagger browed, balding, tattooed flannel shirt wearing husband.

I can’t really discuss the plot any further without spoiling it too much. Suffice it to say that suitably horrific events occur when Anthony and Susie try to fix their living situation. “Guilty Susie” tries to tell a full story, but there’s little to get us to care about the Deverauxes other than that they’re the stock little girl and tough older brother who tries to protect her. The Thompsons aren’t given any shadings besides cartoonishly evil. We’ve seen this setup before, and Zudnich doesn’t spin it in a compelling way.

Zudnich’s artwork is a good deal more imaginative than his scripting. It’s sparse, clearly laid out, betraying his origins as a storyboarder but not static. One thing that definitely comes across is the desolation and loneliness of the California desert. His figure drawing is somewhat reminiscent of Little Orphan Annie, which I’m sure is intentional given the situation Susie and Antony find themselves in. Zudnich’s depiction of violence is stark, though at times it’s too hastily rendered.

A word about the cover price; $7.99 for one oversized 29 page story on low quality color paper is, I’m sorry, not going to cut it. I know it’s probably costing Zudnich an arm and a leg to get this thing printed and released, but the story isn’t unique or deep or has enough of a hook to really justify its price, nor does the tired cliffhanger provide any real incentive for me to seek out the next issue.

The Molting shows Zudnich’s potential as an artist, but as a writer his story just didn’t grab me. A first issue should offer more than a taste of the story in this day and age; it should offer some of the scope that the writer is hinting at, or a unique enough narrative on its own that the reader is interested in asking what happens next. The Molting offers neither but I wish Zudnich luck in getting to issue #12.