To afficianados of midnight movies across the world, Terrance Zdunich is a tall, imposing figure with multicolored dreadlocks, goth corpsepaint on his face, and a low singing voice that sends chills down the spines of even the most straight-laced audience members.
He is renowned for being the co-creator and star of the sensational cult film “Repo! The Genetic Opera”, which despite a soft opening in 2008 has become a global phenomenon resulting in cosplay competitions, midnight screenings, shadowcasts, and a plethora of people who now look at Paris Hilton in a whole new way. In “Repo!”, Terrance plays the beloved narrator Graverobber, who serves as a sort of Greek muse to the production, tying scenes together with biting wit and wry third-party observations. He is perhaps the most recognizable and celebrated character of the film, and as such Terrance is a frequent guest at shadowcast performances, Q&As, panels, and convention room floors.
But today Terrance is none of these things. Clad in jeans and a black t-shirt, his hair loose and his face unshaven, he carries a bulging paper sack as he walks into a Los Angeles coffee shop and pulls me into a hug. We met briefly in Texas a few weeks ago during one of his shadowcast appearances and had a chance to discuss things beyond the “Repo!” bubble. Terrance is an extremely articulate and easygoing man with a great, slightly dry sense of humor and a sort of vulnerability that endears him instantly to his legions of fans. He can talk excellent music and favorite comics without missing a beat, then segue into serious discussion about life experiences, all without losing his smile. Upon my visit to LA, I reached out to Terrance to discuss his ongoing project “The Molting”, as well as whatever else he has cooking up for his fans. So here we are, and instantly the topic turns to one of the things Terrance probably gets asked about the most: his cockroaches.
For followers of his blog, Terrance is not a “pet man” and he’s never liked the concept of owning another living creature, but he was undertaking a fun little side venture called “The Tutor” in which he taught interested fans how to paint or draw via a Youtube channel. In these macabre, humorous little videos, Terrance sported a leather butcher’s apron and grimly outlined the creative process for his viewers using live cockroaches as ‘mascots’ and a simulated corpse for a model. “But when I was finished with the project, these roaches had hung out with me for awhile and it just didn’t feel right to let them go like that,” Terrance admits sheepishly, grinning, “so I kept them. And they started breeding, so now I have a full-blown colony. I didn’t realize that there’s a species of roach that only has to have sex once but can keep impregnating itself from that one time, so even though I separated the guys from the girls I’m still having new babies… it’s a full-on thing now and they’re not even getting the fun of sex out of it!”
Terrance’s cockroaches have become more than a running joke among his fans; he considers them highly symbolic of his own outlook on life, which is why they’ve incorporated themselves not only into his artwork but into the logo on his website, into his daily life, and into his home as guests. “Roaches are always associated with filth and infestation, but they’re just trying to survive,” Terrance says philosophically. “They’re actually extremely clean, much cleaner than cats or dogs, and they are very resilient to their surroundings. I’ve always sort of associated with them in that way--- they feel like they need to hide in the shadows because they’re so persecuted, but they’re very calm and gentle when you get used to them. I’ve always been fascinated with the process of their molting, as well, which of course is where the title for my comic book comes from. A molting is just a shedding of the old and an embracing of the new; they’re discarding what’s left of who they were to make room for bigger, better armor to protect them. I think that’s a message I’d like to see passed along through ‘The Molting’…. I’d like my fans to understand that while they have to go through a transformation sometimes, they have to build their own armor. ‘Repo!’ was unique in that it resonated with a certain crowd, the sort of artistic misfit loner kids… it made them feel like it was okay to be different. ‘The Molting’ is more morally nebulous, a lot of gray area there, but at the end of the day I think it shows that it’s alright to come from this messed-up, dysfunctional background, that you can still overcome that and make something of yourself. You don’t have to be your family or your environment. I think ‘The Molting’ will connect with tougher kids, kids with more serious problems in their past or their home lives, kids who’ve been through that pain. Survivors don’t always have to be heroes.”
‘The Molting’ is currently six issues into its run, which Terrance says will eventually be a graphic novel that will near 600 pages. “I was just coming down off the long, strange journey of ‘Repo!’, which was great in some ways and awful in others, and I have always been a huge fan of comic books. When I was younger I was more a fan of the artwork, but as I grew up I developed a real appreciation for the writing, especially people like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. When I read ‘The Sandman’ series, it felt like art in a way that cinema didn’t. Comics are these long-form stories with complicated arcs and really complex characters, and that kind of depth can’t usually be shown in the confines of a movie. I wanted to capture that purity of simply telling a story, so I decided to do it on my own. That’s why sometimes the issues come out at different time intervals; I’m doing it by myself and I fund it as well, and it can be costly to get each issue printed because they’re all full color and fairly long. The latest issue was sixty pages. That adds up.”
Terrance pulls a thick sheaf of stiff paper from the brown sack he brought in with him and suddenly this confident, well-spoken man turns a little shy. “I brought the art from the next issue if you’d like to see it,” he says mildly, setting the inch-thick stack of papers on the table between us. “I don’t want to force you or anything if you’re not into it.” Clearly he’s insane, since back in Texas I bought every issue of the comic and then pleaded for a copy of the latest; I read the entire run in one evening back to back and couldn’t put them down. So of course I was elated for the opportunity to see the raw, uncolored drawings for the next issue. Terrance’s artwork is truly a force to be reckoned with--- stark contrast with thick black blocks of shadow and impossible attention to detail steal the breath of any comic book fan. His style is completely unique, and clearly influenced from his years of graphic work and storyboarding. In one frame, I comment on the intricate white-out graffiti on a black-shaded school desk, and Terrance seems surprised and pleased that I noticed this. A moment later, I am stunned into silence at a frame in which he has painstakingly reproduced a classic work of art with the most tiny, elaborate brush work imaginable. Slowly, I start turning the pages while he continues speaking. I’m listening, but unable to tear my eyes from the story. Even without text blocks, dialogue or color, this story is powerful and beautiful.
“I originally wrote the script in two chapters, which then got broken down further to become the issues of the comic,” Terrance says as I sift through the large pieces of art between us. “I work in storybook pages, two pages blocked out on one big sheet. I have models who pose as the characters and I take photos of them for reference; I do this all separately, they’ve never even met each other. Then I take the reference pictures and start penciling the spread, then ink it. I use two brushes, one smaller and one larger, and nothing overly complicated.” When I comment on the unusual effect he used for the leaves of a tree in one scene, he smiles and says “That’s just a couple of brushstrokes and some sponging. After I finish all of the inking, I scan everything in and send it to my colorist and letterer, with notes on what I’m looking for. When I get everything back and it’s all approved, then we send it off to the printer.”
This is not your father’s ‘Superman’ series; ‘The Molting’ is an incredibly bleak but human story about a dysfunctional family living in Anaheim, which is in reality a slum with Disneyland shoved right in the middle. The characters are multi-faceted and complex, and their story unravels in a way that is like watching a slow, heart-wrenching train wreck as the issues march on. Terrance says that the story is somewhat influenced by his own unconventional childhood living in Santa Ana and that he sees quite a bit of himself in the characters of Trevor and Joseph in that he was a sensitive loner, but he also harvested a lot of anger and got into a lot of fights, as well as acting out through things like theft. “I also relate a lot to Shilo [in ‘Repo!’] in that she’s a young person who was seeking normalcy above all else. All of her role models were deeply damaged and she had no idea what ‘normal’ was, only that she didn’t have it. It’s what ties everything together with the concept of molting… there is no glass slipper, there is no need to give in to your upbringing. Just shed everything and make yourself something new.”
When the stunning artwork is being packed away, a girl in line to get a drink is peering over his shoulder curiously, her eyes wide. “Excuse me… wow,” she says before Terrance can put them all away. “Who drew those?” Humbly Terrance admits that he did, and the girl tells him in an awed voice that they’re amazing. A faint blush spreads across his cheeks as he thanks her, and she hurries away with her coffee. It’s part of his charm; this man is genuinely unused to hearing how fantastic he is, and one gets the impression that despite all of the doting fans and worshipful admirers he harvests, he is still one of the most grounded celebrities someone’s likely to find.
One of the most recognizable things about Terrance Zdunich may be his voice; a deep, rich voice that seems better suited to audio-books than general conversation, his singing is one of the most praised factors on the ‘Repo!’ soundtrack. When I ask him if he’s planning on recording an album like ‘Repo!’ alums Anthony Stewart Head or Kevin ‘Oghr’ Ogilvie, Terrance denies it and says that most of the fun for him is in creating a character and being outside of himself. Recently he grew out his facial hair and taught himself Russian dancing for a hilarious viral video campaign he underwent with his pal Spooky Dan Walker. Seen at www.badassrussian.com, Terrance undertook the alter ego of Count Tarakan and filmed a music video performing the song “Istanbul” with a Russian accent as thick as his beard. “The fun with that was that there was no stress, we were just creating a world,” he laughs when I bring up the Russian. “We’ve talked about doing an album but it’d just be a little fun thing. If I ever did an actual album, it’d be much more like ‘Murder Ballads’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds… I love how that album actually tells several stories within itself. I’m also a huge fan of Tom Waits. I do listen to music while I’m working on ‘The Molting’, and a lot of audio books since I can’t read while I draw, but the music I listen to is stuff people probably wouldn’t expect. Like a horror soundtrack and then a ton of 90s hip-hop. When I was younger the first music I really got into was Motown because it was so beautiful and fun but you can tell there was a lot of darkness underneath it, a lot of anger and things under the surface. I work a lot of music into the comic… in the new one, there’s direct reference to Bob Dylan among others.”
When he’s not drawing or dressing up like he’s from the Soviet Union, Terrance is expanding his horizons exponentially with each new undertaking. “I’m a masochist, I purposely make things harder on myself,” he laughs. “I like to push my limits when it comes to art, see if I can do things. What’s the fun in playing it safe?” I mention that I’ve heard tell about a new project he’s working on with Darren Lynn Bousman, who worked with Terrance on ‘Repo!’ and also directed such films as ‘Saw II’, ‘Saw III’, ‘Mother’s Day’, and ’11-11-11”. Terrance suddenly gets the coy cat-with-the-canary expression that anyone holding a truly cool secret possesses and says, “Alright, I can tell you a little, but I can’t say very much. It’s a musical, it’s like a mixture of ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’, ‘Tales from the Crypt’, and like an anti-‘Glee’ I guess. It’s not fucking ‘Oklahoma’, you know,” he snickers. “But it has a lot of small stories all tied together in one big world, and it shows how everyone’s interacting in this world. The music has more in common with ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ or ‘The Haunted Mansion’ at Disneyland than ‘Repo!’ I think, and it’s a much more mature work than ‘Repo!’ was. The storytelling is more polished, and I can tell you this, there’s nothing out there like it right now. “ He won’t reveal which names are attached because the film is too early in its development, but he does assure me that some very cool people are involved.
To many, Terrance Zdunich is the modern day representative of a true artist. He has been doing this for most of his life and shows no signs of stopping, and while he certainly embraces the connection with fans of ‘Repo!’, there is so much more to him than a shadowy figure in a Danzig belt buckle peddling fictional blue Zydrate to legions of groupies. He lives and dies by the sword, or in this case the paintbrush, and while others are sitting around patting themselves on the back and cashing their royalty checks while churning out careless work into the Hollywood machine, Terrance is likely in his roach-filled apartment, listening to Tom Waits with a paintbrush in his hand and that slightly mischievous smile on his face, readying the next issue of ‘The Molting’ to show the world the true colors of the armor he’s built beneath the exoskeleton he’s worked so hard to shed.
