Why I Love... The Molting!
Welcome to another edition of the Why I Love column, where I, Eric Ratcliffe, pick something I've read, played, listened to or watched to discuss with you, fair readers. This week I talk about something very cool by a creator who is responsible for one of my new favorite cult movies of the last few years. I talk, of course about Terrance Zdunich and his independent comic, The Molting.
Now, as I already mentioned I was a huge fan of Repo the Genetic Opera, and at the beginning of the movie we get this beautiful narrative via storyboards that really set the tone of the movie. Those storyboards were the first time I viewed Terrance's artwork and thought right away that it was extremely comic book like. This leads us to the first 4 issues of The Molting.
Published in 2009, the first issue is a bit of an origin story and sets up the overall tone of the series so far. Two orphaned children are given to their aunt and uncle by the courts to be looked after. It's obvious that the aunt and uncle are very horrible people and the children, Anthony and his sister Susanna probably need to escape this situation before it's too late. It's almost a reverse Annie story where instead of being taken in by the millionaire, they are taken in by horrible people who are very obviously not out for their best interest.
Of course, when things reach the breaking point in this first issue it hits hard and things go into an extremely dark place. Tone wise, at least for me the series starts to feel like David Hine's Strange Embrace. The kids finally have enough and by the end of the first issue Susie is by herself, 17 and on her way to somewhere different.
The book, after reading all four issues, feels like a weird horror story but not in a supernatural way, it's just basically how humanity can be filled with horrible people and how the good in the world does its best to survive. By issue 4 something is definitely up with Susie who now has two children, but I can't tell if it's because of what happened to her at a young age or if it's something much more sinister hiding underneath her somewhat less than normal frame.
The second issue we jump into the future and meet Joseph and Trevor whom we can already see the major differences between in the first few pages as Trevor has stolen things and Joseph is apparently along to help.
Joseph seems to become our focus in issue two through four and I'm not sure if it's staying that way. He seems to be the most normal member of our cast and easily the one you can identify with. I also like the fact that even though he has to deal with all the terrible things he has to, he can still do something good, which in Joseph's case is his artwork.
Susie and the kids' father are always fighting throughout these issues and it's not told why. It's a very chaotic environment for anyone to live and I love where the series takes place, which I won't spoil for anyone.
Each character has their own moments to really shine and show who they are as a person. In issue three Trevor helps a man against a gang while a couple of cops just sit in the diner doing nothing about it. It shows that just because he's a thief doesn't mean that he doesn't have some humanity in him. Though his girlfriend will seemingly cause some trouble in the series as the mystery to what exactly is in the attic is brought up.
Issue four gives us a view into history and gives us some promise for Joseph whose teacher has seen some promise in. it also shows us that the cops of the city don't seem to care about rights and break into houses without warrants as well as showing that Susie doesn't like uninvited guests and Joseph seemingly getting some new direction in life. The story seems to be building to something huge at this point and I know I for one will be following as much as I can as I am very interested in just what is going on with this book.
Terrance's artwork itself seems to be a little bit of Michael Gaydos, a little Mike Allred and a little bit like Josh Howard all rolled into one unique style. Brian Johnson's colors only strengthen his artwork and Oceano Ransford's letters help paint the overall mystery of Susie's character as well as others.
Eric Ratcliffe is a writer/pop culture journalist/interviewer who is currently working on pitching a project named the Hunter chronicles. When not reading his weekly stack, Eric can be found watching dvd's, playing on his 360 (gamertag: Zack Hunter) or just surfing online trying to find a scoop or two. Eric is a prolific writer, podcaster and convention reporter here at Comic Related.
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