Category: Jhonen Vasquez

If you are the 90s or early 00s kid, then you probably know who Jhonen Vasquez is. If not, you have definitely seen at least one of the project that he worked on whether it be the comic books or animation series on TV. Today Mr. Vasquez is a very influential figure in the world of comic books and animation. His experience weighs a lot within the creative community and his own fans can easily distinguish his works from any other. Vasquez has been in the business since the mid-90s and his career is definitely something worth talking about.

Before the years of fame, he primarily featured in magazines with his one-page stories that already had his style and expression. In 1995 Vasquez releases his first 7-issue comic called Johnny The Homicidal Maniac. Not a very pleasant name for a comic book but soon this became Jhonen’s famous creating style. The cover for the comic included “Z?” mark which we will see later on as well in his other works. This links to uncertainty and a large number of phobias that each of his characters has. He portrays Johnny as a young man that has lost his path. The guy does not know what to do and what was destined for him to do. The comic shows him in the constant search for the meaning of life as he seemingly lacks one. This search, unfortunately, leads to the deaths of many people that surround Johnny.

The comic later grew into another one. This was a rather spin-off where we were to meet Squee a little bit closer. Squee is the supporting character in Johnny The Homicidal Maniac and here he gets a full 4-issue series dedicated to his own story.
This boy gets a lot of adventures in these four issues. He meets aliens and even Satan along with his son.
Vasquez appealed to the reader’s’ pity and put Squee on the cover and made him beg “Buy me or I’ll die!”. Nice touch that fits the style.

Johnny and his search for the meaning of life haunted the author for some more time and he released another spin-off series called I Feel Sick. This one tells about Devi, an artist. She tries not to go insane as she lives in a clearly crazy vision of the society that surrounds her. She has long conversations with her own painting named Sickness.
This scene is usual for Vasquez’s works. He likes to show off the imperfections of characters he creates. They often struggle to sleep and openly converse with their phobias that have their own forms. This is Vasquez’s own way to share his own hypnophobia, the fear to go asleep. Then the Fillerbunny followed. It is a mini-comic that was done to fill the blank spaces of the page in Squee that were dedicated to advertising.

His newest work is the Invader Zim comic. It has been four volumes, 20 issues total among with other additional materials. Invader Zim is Vasquez’s big success as a cartoon maker. He was the executive producer, did the artwork and was the writer of the animated series. The show was a big success and Jhonen returned it to life in a form of a comic in 2015.
Zim is an alien that lives undercover and disguises himself while building the plans to dominate over the Earth. His lovely robotic dog with a fake suit adds additional charm to the series and they are all back in the comic book!
More hidden messages, more phobias, and more geometrically designed characters. This is what we love about Jhonen’s works and he never fails to deliver. Grim yet warm and somewhat bittersweet feeling about his characters makes the comics he produces a true art loved by his fans and critics.