Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac | |
---|---|
Johnny C., Squee | |
Creative team | |
Created by | Jhonen Vasquez |
Written by | Jhonen Vasquez |
Artist(s) | Jhonen Vasquez |
Editor(s) | Jennifer de Guzman |
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (often abbreviated JtHM) is the first
Creation
Vasquez started drawing in kindergarten.
In the early 1990s, Carpe Noctem, a magazine about the goth subculture, published several one-page strips featuring Johnny, now called Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.[2][7] Though he never planned to create comic books,[1][8] Vasquez submitted samples of his artwork to alternative comics publisher Slave Labor Graphics.[2][5] Between August 1995 and January 1997, the publisher released a series of seven full-length issues based on the character.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Vasquez describes the production process for Johnny as a "mess" and a "spew".[3] As Vasquez worked on the comic, he prepared less and less, foregoing outlines and sketches and writing dialogue as he inked.[2][3] Vasquez wishes that he had taken more time to plan the series, and feels that the quality of the dialogue suffered from his haphazard approach.[3]
A photograph of one of Vasquez's friends, Leah England, serves as the middle of a portrait collection on the cover of the second issue of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.[10][16] England also gave Vasquez the inspiration for a filler strip about a child who was dangerously afraid of losing sight of his mother, as well as the "Meanwhile..." strip in the second issue.[10][16] The two were discussing an event that had happened to a cheerleader, and thinking up the worst excuse possible.[6]
Jhonen based Psychodoughboy and Mr. Eff on two real Styrofoam Pillsbury Doughboy display figures that he found and painted.[6] He created Nailbunny as he was drawing the first page on which the character appears.[6] Vasquez modeled for himself while drawing the characters.[6]
Vasquez intended a tapeworm named Scolex to be one of Johnny's voices, but the character never made it into the finished series.[17] Vasquez now uses Chancre Scolex as a pen name for Everything Can Be Beaten and his LiveJournal.[18][19][20]
Like many alternative comics, and other Slave Labor Graphics titles, Johnny is creator-owned. By September 1996, Vasquez announced in his introduction to the sixth issue of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac that he had reached sufficient success in his artistic career to be able to quit his day-job and devote himself full-time to his art.[14]
As his comics moved from dedicated comic book shops into shopping malls, Vasquez bemoaned the attendant change in his audience.[3] Vasquez created his own animated series Invader Zim, and became uncomfortable with younger fans of Zim reading Johnny, because of the violence depicted.[3]
Director's Cut
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut, a trade paperback released by Slave Labor Graphics in July 1997, collected the series.[21] Slave Labor also released a hardcover version of the collection. Rob Schrab provides a foreword.[4] The trade paperback includes a "Gallery of Ancient Horrors" that features a few strips previously published in the Mount Pleasant High School newspaper and Carpe Noctem, as well as some strips previously unpublished, all with commentary by Vasquez.[2] The paperback also introduces some new supplementary materials such as sketches, an issue-by-issue synopsis, character profiles, and a fictional interview with Vasquez, but leaves out many of the filler strips from the original series.[21]
The cover of the trade paperback features the logo "Z?", meaning "question sleep". "Z?" appears frequently throughout Vasquez's work and Question Sleep is the name of his official website.[22] "Z?" is a reference to insomnia, a condition from which several of his characters suffer.[21][23][24][25]
Spin-offs
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac spawned two spin-offs: a four-issue series titled Squee!,[23] and a double-shot titled I Feel Sick.[24][25] The trade paperback release of Squee!, titled Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors, includes the filler strips left out of Director's Cut.[23] Johnny makes cameo appearances at the end of Squee! and in the second issue of I Feel Sick.[23][25] Vasquez also maintains a Twitter account from the perspective of Johnny.
Style
The comic is high-contrast
Main characters
Johnny "Nny" C.
The series focuses on Johnny C., a man who elaborately slaughters anyone who irritates him. He drains his victims of blood to paint over a wall in his house to prevent a monster from escaping. He is five feet, nine inches and one hundred and fifteen pounds. He likes stars, the emotionless function of insects, watching people get abducted by aliens, Cherry 'FizWiz', Cherry 'Brain-Freezies', all kinds of movies, Fruity Pops, the moon, little chubby babies, pop rocks and soda, and drawing Happy Noodle Boy. He dislikes humidity, sleep, the physical and mental need for anything, being abducted by aliens, people who've "GOTTA HAVE A SMOKE!", certain words (such as "wacky"), losing his mind, Satan's attitude and getting shot in the head (or just using a gun in general).
Minus a tongue-in-cheek passage describing Johnny's origins stemming from the murder of his parents by an "evil man", his backstory and life before the events of the comic are deliberately kept vague.
Todd "Squee" Casil
Todd Casil (known as "Squee" due to the noise that he makes when frightened) is a young boy who lives in the house next to Johnny. Neither of his parents care for him, especially his father, who works countless hours at a dead end job and leads a miserable life after raising Squee. While his parents are not outright abusive or even neglectful, his mother is heavily implied to be a drug addict of some sort, and his father has no qualms blaming Squee for all of his own personal failures, a trait Johnny picked up on and seemingly detests--Johnny thus becomes a sort of "guardian" for Squee, offering to blind his father for revenge, and saving him from a child molester. Despite this, Squee seems to be the only main human character aside from Johnny who is aware of his crimes, and thus is deathly afraid of him. Squee's only friend is a small teddy bear named Shmee. Shmee tells Squee in a dream that he is a "trauma sponge", all of his fears and nightmares are "contained" in Shmee. Squee is also friends with Satan's son, with whom he attends school. Squee has his own series called Squee!, which was later collected in the TPB Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book Of Unspeakable Horrors.
Setting
The series is set in the mid-1990s in an unspecified, fictional city. Decaying urban streets, shadowed back alleys and filthy convenience stores serve as the series’ backdrop. Crumbling and covered with litter and graffiti, everything is in a state of bleak decay, overlit by the neon signs of trashy consumer capitalism.[21]
Johnny lives in a decrepit, single-story house with the street address 777.[9] The house has an extensive labyrinth of tunnels underneath.[12] Johnny uses the subterranean rooms as dungeons and torture chambers,[21] as well as a storage place for corpses,[15] though he also buries the remains of his victims.[11] The tunnels also provide him with a network to various locations, such as his neighbor Squee's residence.[15] Johnny perceives the layout of the house as constantly changing, though he does not state if this shifting is the result of the supernatural forces at work within the house or his own psychosis,[26] though in a later issue, when two of his prisoners escape, it is revealed that the house is, in fact, a supernatural entity that does not obey the laws of physics. Johnny states that he found the house and moved in some time ago.[21] He also constructed an unidentified flying object landing pad on the roof.[11] Throughout the series, there is no case where the authorities or the police are looking for Johnny, and they seem unaware of his existence.
A later part of the story takes place in the afterlife.[14] After accidentally shooting himself,[12] Johnny journeys first to Heaven and then to Hell, and both turn out to have more in common with Earth than he expected.[14]
Synopsis
The story is told in
The series begins when Squee wakes in the middle of the night to find Johnny in the bathroom of his family's new house. After a confrontation with Squee's
Eventually, Johnny's soul arrives in
Filler strips
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac features several filler strips, which, for the most part, have nothing to do with the main storyline. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut collects "Happy Noodle Boy", "Public Service Announcement", and "Anne Gwish" while Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors includes "Wobbly-Headed Bob", "Meanwhile...", and "True Tales of Human Drama".[21][23]
Happy Noodle Boy
There is also a comic within a comic in the form of "Happy Noodle Boy", written and drawn by Johnny himself.[21]
Public Service Announcement
In a few issues, there are "Public Service Announcement" strips that parody television
Anne Gwish
Anne Gwish is a young goth woman that has her own strip in the later part of the series. Her name is a pun on the word "anguish." Her storyline is completely unrelated to Johnny's, though she lives in the same fictional universe. The strips featuring her are largely a satire on the goth subculture.[21]
Wobbly-Headed Bob
Wobbly-Headed Bob lives in a separate
Meanwhile...
In one "Meanwhile..." strip, a group of piñatas come to life to exact revenge on a girl whose birthday party claimed one of their own. In another, two ancient gods of war possess a pair of grade school crossing guards to reenact an epic battle. In yet another, a naïve goth teenager, a character who also appears in I Feel Sick, dreams of becoming a sexy vampire like those found in The Vampire Chronicles, but transforms instead into a vampire more like Count Orlok. In one of the more infamous "Meanwhile..." strips, a nervous man on a date with Devi D. tries to conceal his explosive diarrhea. In an act of self-insertion, Jhonen Vasquez himself appears in other "Meanwhile..." strips.[23]
True Tales of Human Drama
The strips titled "True Tales of Human Drama" tell stories about things such as a baby exploding, a plane crashing into a bus full of boy scouts, and a man blowing something out of his nose so horrible that a priest commands him to jump off a building.[23]
Reception
On 5 April 2008, Wizard placed the third issue of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac at number 151 in its rundown of the 200 greatest comics since the magazine started in July 1991.[27]
Merchandise
Over the years, Slave Labor Graphics has sold Johnny the Homicidal Maniac merchandise such as clothing, posters, and toys.[28] Slave Labor released a Spooky squeeze toy, first shown in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #4,[12] as part of its promotion for I Feel Sick.[28] Several years ago, a mug based on the design of the wall monster with the Question Sleep logo was under development.[20]
References
- ^ a b Ivey, Shane (2001-10-26). "Death and Morons: The Jhonen Vasquez Story: Page 3". Revolution Science Fiction. Retrieved 2009-07-05.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-943151-16-8.
- ^ a b c d e f g Epstein, Daniel Robert (2003-05-19). "Interviews: Jhonen Vasquez Invades SuicideGirls". SuicideGirls. Retrieved 2009-07-05.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-943151-16-8.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-943151-16-8.
- ^ a b c d e Romao, Selina. "The Torturous World of Jhonen Vasquez". BunnySneezes. Archived from the original on 2010-02-27. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ Carpe Noctem.
- ^ Puerto, Michael. "Youth Radio meets comic book artist Jhonen Vasquez in a dark alley". Youth Radio. Archived from the original on 2011-07-16.
- ^ a b Vasquez, Jhonen (August 1995). Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #1. Slave Labor Graphics.
- ^ a b c Vasquez, Jhonen. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #2. Slave Labor Graphics.
- ^ a b c Vasquez, Jhonen. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #3. Slave Labor Graphics.
- ^ a b c d Vasquez, Jhonen. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #4. Slave Labor Graphics.
- ^ Vasquez, Jhonen (1996). Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #5. Slave Labor Graphics.
- ^ a b c d Vasquez, Jhonen (September 1996). Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #6. Slave Labor Graphics.
- ^ a b c d Vasquez, Jhonen (January 1997). Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #7. Slave Labor Graphics.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-943151-16-8.
- ^ Ivey, Shane (2001-10-26). "Death and Morons: The Jhonen Vasquez Story: Page 4". Revolution Science Fiction. Retrieved 2009-07-05.
- ISBN 978-0-943151-65-6.
- ^ "Everything Can Be Beaten By Scolex and Scrambly". SLG Publishing website. Retrieved 2009-07-05.
- ^ a b Vasquez, Jhonen. "We Get You When You Sleep". LiveJournal. Archived from the original on March 31, 2011. Retrieved 2009-07-05.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-943151-16-8.
- ^ Vasquez, Jhonen (2009). "The Official Website of Parasite Induced Dementia". QuestionSleep.com. Retrieved 2009-07-05.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-943151-24-3.
- ^ a b Vasquez, Jhonen; Rikki Simons (1999). I Feel Sick #1. Slave Labor Graphics.
- ^ a b c Vasquez, Jhonen; Rikki Simons (1999). I Feel Sick #2. Slave Labor Graphics.
- ^ Vasquez, Jhonen. "Johnny C. (Johnny_C) on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2009-07-05.
- ^ "200 Greatest Comics in Wizard's History". Wizard. Archived from the original on May 13, 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ a b "Comics and Stuff By Jhonen Vasquez". SLG Publishing website. Retrieved 2009-07-05.
External links
- Jhonen Vasquez official website
- Official website of Slave Labor Graphics, publisher of JTHM
- Johnny the Homicidal Maniac at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on October 8, 2016.
- McKeon, Matthew. "Jhonen Vasquez...Shredding the Medium". Haven House Publications, Ltd.
- "Comic Book Geeks Beleaguer Jhonen Vasquez: A Q&A". MeanderingEntertainer.com. September 13, 2007. Retrieved October 8, 2016.