Creation

Jenny was created by Scott McCloud for the black and white volume of Zot!, in issue 11.

Terry is Jennifer Weaver's best friend, giving her emotional support and comfort throughout her difficult life juggling school, boys, her home life, and Zot. Terry is one of the first and, in the beginning, only people to know about Zot's true origins. She mostly stays in the background, talking to Jenny about her parents' divorce and trying to comfort her, as well as ward off annoying or insolent young boys from school.

Major Story Arcs

Heroes and Villains

Now in high school, Jenny meets Terry and they become close friends, both feeling somewhat outcast at the school. Terry teases Jenny about her mysterious boyfriend, who Jenny can’t divulge much information about since he’s from another dimension. Jenny also doesn’t like to call him her "boyfriend." A nerdy boy, Woody, tries to ask Jenny out by Terry wards him off. Jenny tries to be nice to him but Terry is more gruff and sends him off.

When they ride their bikes to Jenny’s house later, Butch makes racist remarks about Terry’s Latina heritage; unsurprisingly she and Jenny don’t act warmly to Butch, who is hurt and lonely himself. Terry later tells Jenny that she gets harassed by her brothers Hector and Julio.

Zot and some of his friends from his home dimension show up and take Jenny and Terry for a ride to the big city in their flying car. Terry doesn’t know what to make of it and is freaked out. The naïve Zot gets caught up in a mugging, further frightening them, but they eventually get home.

The next day at school Woody talks with Jenny again and they have to make clear that Jenny already has a relationship with Zot. Woody walks off, embarrassed. Zot’s Uncle Max later grabs Jenny through an interdimensional portal and brings her to Zot’s world, leaving the hesitant Terry behind.

Zot starts coming around more and Terry gets more acclimated to him. Zot thinks Terry is good for Jenny.

Zot and Jenny go to visit Terry at her house and see a nearby home is on fire. Zot rescues some of the people inside but the husband dies despite Zot’s best efforts. Zot can’t believe it; he is not used to failing.

The three of them go swimming and then buy snacks. They discuss whether Zot’s perspective on life is realistic; Terry doesn’t think so. Jenny invites her to Zot’s world but Terry prefers reality. Jenny, on the other hand, prefers Zot’s Utopia to the imperfect world she lives in.

Jenny is later caught by the robot Zybox, who puts her in a dream state. Among other things, Dream-Terry tries to persuade Jenny that Zot only exists in a TV show. She later wakes up and Zot and their friends defeat Zybox.

Later, Jenny and Terry celebrate the end of the school year. They talk about how Jenny felt bad about Woody. Then Woody shows up, tall and debonair. He’s been away in France with his diplomat father. Jenny now has a crush on him but Terry still disapproves.

Terry, her mother and father, her younger sister, and Jenny are driving home from the beach when they see Woody moping on the side of the road. He likes Jenny but thinks Zot will beat him out. Jenny gets out to walk with Woody and Terry tells her parents that Jenny is confused and that Woody isn’t worth it. Her dad explains that Woody’s dad is not only important but an unusually ethical diplomat.

Jenny and Zot finally persuade Terry and Woody to visit Zot’s Earth for a New Year’s Eve party at Max’s. Everyone Zot knows is there. In a pie-guessing contest, she incorrectly guesses pecan. Terry is predictably weirded out by things such as the fact that Butch is a monkey on Zot’s world. Her startled reaction makes her throw the pie across the room, leading to a chain reaction which results in Zot being hit with it in the face. He is happy to learn it is meringue. Various other hijinks occur, including the appearance of multiple supervillains, but Terry’s reaction to all this is not seen. Eventually they all return home, but because of even more hijinks, Zot can’t open the portal to his world anymore, so he is stuck on the "real" Earth with the rest of them.

The Earth Stories

Jenny is frustrated to no longer be able to go to Zot’s better world but Terry doesn’t mind. Zot turns invisible and plays some tricks on Terry. Terry sees Woody read Frank Conroy’s Stop Time and thinks he likes it because it’s "dirty," but he just enjoys literature, something she can’t grasp.

They hang out with Woody’s comic nerd friends at lunch and have more discussions about whether Jenny’s boyfriend is Woody or Zot. Terry tries to challenge Zot into saying something nice about their "Alcatraz" high school and he says it’s "clean."

After this point, many of the issues are dedicated to one character, to provide them with greater depth. Terry’s issue revolves around her attraction to her former friend, and out lesbian, Pamela Singer. In the issue, Terry struggles to deal with the fact she might be a lesbian, as she remembers a horrible incident involving Terry’s brother, Harry, who was thought to be homosexual. A prank caused the Harry to have inner ear troubles the rest of his life and lose the ability to dance; dancing being his former passion, Terry was horrified at the thought of what would happen if she came out as a lesbian. She will no longer speak to Pam in public out of fear.

Terry is not even really sure if she’s gay. She remembers holding hands with Pam when they were younger and thinks that she "didn’t know there was anything wrong with her [Pam]." She she’s still indoctrined with the idea that being gay is bad. However, she can’t stop thinking about her as she goes to sleep. The next day, she thinks about how pretty her teacher’s clothes are. She can’t understand Jenny’s attraction to Woody and subconsciously draws Pam in her notebook. When a boy tries to pass her a note, Terry embarrasses him in front of the whole class to cover up her lesbian leanings. When he starts to cry, she feels shame.

When some of the popular girls at the school ask Terry to eat lunch with her, she says no and hangs out with Woody’s outcast friends instead, feeling more akin to them. But then, again, she feels the need to make fun of them to cover up her sense of similarity. She apologizes. Later she tells Jenny how beautiful and thin Brandy is, and when Jenny says she feels homely in comparison, Terry tells her she’s the prettiest friend she has. Then she brings up how she found some of her brother’s Playboys, and again tries to cover up how she doesn’t understand why someone would want to look at them.

She dreams about Pam at night again. The next day they eat with Woody’s friends again and have an argument about whether it’s safe for Zot to be a hero on this Earth. Then they discuss how Harry was hurt by the firecracker. Jenny wants Woody to write an editorial against gay-bashing but he’s afraid. As they argue, Terry can’t stand the tension of how close it is to what she’s thinking about and runs off.

Zot follows her. He has observed the way Terry looks at Jenny and knows she thinks she’s pretty but Terry explains that she has a crush on Pam, and that she feels bad because of how she’s been avoiding her. Zot comforts her and when she asks, he assures her she is perfectly "normal," and that on his world she would be perfectly welcome. As she cries with vulnerability in finally being able to talk with someone about being gay, he says, "Oh, look at you. Look what they’ve done to you."

This line becomes famous among queer readers of the comic; it is one of the first times in fairly mainstream comics that someone has openly discussed being gay, and is accepted for it.

This is the first time we really see Terry vulnerable and showing feelings of sadness or pain.

She continues to dream about Pam, but now tries to game out how to tell her how she feels. She isn’t confident in any of the options.

The next day, she runs into the popular girls again, who first talk about boys and then put down Pam for being gay. Terry begs off and walks toward Pam. However, when Pam says hi, Terry doesn’t respond and walks past, as she has done in the past. That seems like the end of the comic.

However, in a sneak extra page, she turns back and excitedly goes to talk with Pam. As with the earlier line described above, this sneak ending becomes famous among gay comic readers. Some readers later told McCloud that they never turned the page and only learned that Terry turned back years later.

When some bullies attack Woody for writing a pro-gay editorial in the paper, Terry is there. Zot helps beat the bullies back up in return. Later, she watches Sweet November and an art movie about a birdcage with the others. She prefers Sweet November.

At the end of Zot, each of Jenny’s friends reflect on their recent lives. Terry continues to think about being gay, and how it would be nice to be able to escape to Zot’s world.

As the friends celebrate the end of high school, Woody wonders where Jenny is. Terry wonders if she’s not there because her parents have announced their divorce. However, Jenny is in the city, where she has found Zot in the hospital after he tried to stop more crime. He’s in very bad shape. Woody’s dad takes the friends in to support Jenny and see Zot. Strangely, Terry does not seem to be among them.

Uncle Max manages to finally bring Zot back to his home dimension, where he is healed, and because of the difference in time between dimensions, it seems to happen overnight. Zot thinks everyone would enjoy a vacation on his world to release some of their recent stress.

Terry, along with the rest of Jenny's friends, show up at Jenny’s house to go through the portal. After Jenny tries to stubbornly say she’s never going back home, Zot manages to persuade her that her Earth has value too. The group then all steps into Zot's world to explore and marvels at the paradise, taking a sort of vacation from their own imperfect world, meant to represent our own. Terry is particularly happy to share this experience with Pam, who is visiting with her for the first time.

Alternate Versions

Within the world of "Dimension 10 1/2," the stick-figure alternate universe created by Matt Feazell and running in the back of the black-and-white issues of Zot!, Terry visits a science museum on her Earth with Zot, Jenny, and Woody. Zot messes around with the exhibits and accidentally awakens the robot Worker Unit. It goes wild and does people's work for them. Terry distracts it so they can stop this capitalist nightmare.

Terry shows up to see a movie about Zot along with the rest of their friends. Various hijinks ensue.