Jhonen Vasquez was born on September 1, 1974 in San Jose, California. He graduated from Mount Pleasant High School in 1992 and went on to De Anza College. I couldn't find any information on whether he graduated or not. Everyone just simply said that he WENT there.
Mr. Vasquez is a gothic comic book writer and artist. He writes the comic books and illustrates them himself. The style of drawing he uses is best done in black and white, which holds the best contrast of dark and light. Gothic comics are really just like the others in their format, but with a darker, demented tone of writing and so on.
Jhonen has published quite a few different comic books, a "Bad Art Collection", and even a children's cartoon. His first, and most popular published work is Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. All of his other comics branch off from JTHM.
Johnny (a.k.a. Nny) is the the main character of JTHM. Johnny is... well, a homicidal maniac. He has two Pillsbury Doughboy dolls that he has painted which speak to him and tell him to kill people. There is a wall in his house in which he paints with the blood of his victims. From what I gather, this blood-stained wall is what truly feeds him homicidal tendencies. There is also a bunny that he got for a pet and nailed to the wall. The bunny is like the doughboys in that it talks to Johnny, but it's like his rational kind side that tells him that killing is wrong and things like that.
One of the comics that came from JTHM is Squee!. Squee is a small boy that is very innocent and afraid of everything. His parents are abusive and his only friend is his stuffed bear, Shmee. Shmee is A LOT like the doughboys in his sick and twisted way. He likes trying to eat people and other "odd" things like that.
Squee was introduced in JTHM. He was the first person to escape from Nny. Most people that you would ask would say they think it's because Squee reminds Nny of himself when he was a child. These two are neighbors, so basically you have the two ends of the anger spectrum within feet of each other.
The school kids make fun of Squee. The only one that tries to befriend him is a kid named Pepito. Pepito's parents are Satan and a Spanish woman. Pepito is the name his mother gave him. Another name for him would be the Anti-Christ.
The next comic I want to mention is Filler Bunny. Filler Bunny was introduced to the world only because one issue of Johnny The Homicidal Maniac was missing an advertisement so he added Filler Bunny to FILL the space.
The story behind Filler Bunny's life is that a group of scientists were looking for a never ending supply of entertainment for children and so they created Filler Bunny to run their experiments. Anytime Filler Bunny starts losing his energy they give him a shot with a huge needle or put him into a holding chamber to flow chemicals into him. They will not allow him to die so he often talks about wanting you to kill him and not wanting to entertain anymore.
Every time Filler Bunny finds a friend the little buddy dies. In the first issue a butt-monkey climbs inside his butt and dies when Filler Bunny eats some nuts and bolts that he thought was food.
Jhonen Vasquez had a deadline for Filler Bunny, and the idea was that he'd wait until the last day to make the whole comic book all at once. The first issue was done in 24 hours, the second in 48, and the most recent issue took around a week. As you can probably tell, it's hard to come up with all the ideas in such a short amount of time so Jhonen has had to increase the time a little more each time.
Here's what Jhonen says about Filler Bunny
"Truly it is my masterwork. Let the people rejoice, for I have returned to the realm of comics, much to the dismay of all but ten, maybe twelve people. It is both a joyous, and yet sad time, as I feel much like Peter Jackson must have felt upon completing his Lord of the Rings trilogy... only this not part of a trilogy, and people hate me."
The last comic to talk about is I Feel Sick. I Feel Sick is about a girl named Devi. She also debuted in JTHM (like I said, they all did). She was a girl that Nny ran across who pretty much just kicked his butt. Eventually, she plays a part in his death, but I don't know much about that (I'm sorry, but maybe that would be good for you to look up yourself).
The cartoon I referred to before is Nickelodeon's Invader Zim. Invader Zim is about an Irken alien invader named Zim. The Irken empire is trying to take over the universe again (yes, I said again). The first time, Zim used the big robot he was given before they even left their home planet and he destroyed about half of the forces on his own. This time the Almighty Tallest (the leaders) Red and Purple have decided to send Zim as far away from them as possible so they bring him forward to make it seem like he was receiving an important mission. The truth is that they sent him to a planet no one has ever heard of with very "primitive" creatures inhabiting it. The planet he ended up at was our humble one known as Earth.
Zim spends his time disguised as a school kid as he attempts to learn the ways of the Humans and how to take over their planet.
Zim has an arch-nemesis named Dib. Dib is a total paranormal. While Zim is plotting the take-over of the planet, Dib is trying to track Zim to reveal his plans and save the Earth.
Zim has a sidekick. His sidekick is a stupid, immature, little robot called G.I.R. who never does quite what Zim asks him to do, sometimes not anything even close to what he asks him to. Gir also has a disguise, but only his is a dog.
The show was cancelled because the executives thought it was tasteless to air a cartoon about an alien attempting to take over the world after the 9/11 attacks. My question then is, do the kids watching it make the connection that it MIGHT be the same kind of thing? Seriously, I don't think most children understand metaphors well enough to see that connection, but I digress.
The last work I'm going to talk about is the Bad Art Collection. The B.A.C. is Jhonen's version of a child's little drawings. You know those horrible pictures that look like a tree but is really a person? It's that kind of thing. For example: there's a picture of a dog farting, a monster that just ate a baby, and a dad telling his little kid that he has to kill him.
F.Y.I. Jhonen is 5'2" and when he does the voice acting for Zim's computer his name shows up as Mr. Scolex (hence the title of the article).
In conclusion I'd have to say that, though Mr. Jhonen Vasquez has some issues I still believe that his political comments in some of his work and the original art is very nice. I truly enjoy learning more about him and his work and I eagerly wait to see what else he has in store for us.
Capt. over and out!
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