This article discusses the works of Jhonen Vasquez such as his most memorable - Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.
He is the sound in the basement or the moving shadow that you only see out of the corner of your eye. Jhonen Vasquez’s writing and images gives a face to the bogeyman.

Born in 1974 in San Jose, CA, Jhonen Vasquez began drawing as a pre-schooler. As a child his interest focused on dinosaurs. As he developed and grew he had sketches of one of his most famous characters, Johnny C., completed by his graduation.

First published in Vasquez’s high school newspaper, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (JTHM) depicts Johnny C. (nicknamed ‘Nny’), a young man who keeps numerous victims in the caverns beneath his house in various stages of torture. When not killing Nny spends his time in the company of a dead bunny named Nailbunny, who Nny nailed to a wall 24 hours after bringing him home from the pet store. This action set Nailbunny’s fate as the angel on Nny’s shoulder and his voice of reason via hallucinations. Mr Eff and Psycho Doughboy, two Styrofoam figures, serve as dual devils to counter Nailbunny. They also speak to Nny; alternating between attempts to convince Nny to commit suicide and encouraging bad behavior toward Nny’s ‘guests’, the people being held in various dungeons by a variety of torture devices.

Throughout the JTHM comic Nny’s own creation Happy Noodle Boy spouts his discontent to whomever is around whether they want to listen or not.

The JTHM spin off Squee, features Nny’s neighbor, Todd (nicknamed Squee because of the sound he makes when afraid), his neglectful parents and his toy bear Shmee. Shmee, much like the doughboys in JTHM, serves to point Squee in the wrong direction. In this comic Squee has the misfortune of living next door to Nny, the Devil and the Antichrist.

In yet another JTHM spin-off, I feel sick; we find Devi D. (Nny’s “one that got away”), her dysfunctional mind, her talking doll named Sickness and a talking painting. JTHM readers first met the introvert in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac where she served as a kind of romantic interest for Nny. The idea of romance disappeared when Nny attempted to kill her in an effort to preserve their moment forever.

Created in an effort by the author to meet a publishing deadline, Fillerbunny the story of a genetically enhanced bunny who was created to entertain and not allowed to die, was completed by the author in a 24hr period. Fillerbunny appears in both Squee and I feel sick as a section divider and in its own comics Fillerbunny in "My Worst Book Yet!" and Revenge of the Fillerbunny.

Vasquez broke the mainstream seal crossing over from paper to television with Invader Zim. In this story Zim is banished to Earth while under the impression that he is there to complete a mission. Essentially sandwiched between peanut butter and jelly, this taste of acid didn’t go over well with the channels demographic (ages 2-11), as the reports of nightmares would testify. Though Jhonen Vasquez had established his reputation as an artist and writer, Nickelodeon cancelled the show after one season due to creative differences between Vasquez and Nickelodeon. Due to its cult status, great effort has been made by the fans to bring back the show to no avail. Invader Zim continues to live on in the occasional rerun on Nickelodeon and MTV2 as well as on DVD.

With the creepiness of Cronenberg and enough violence to bring a tear to Dahmer’s eye, what is next for Jhonen Vasquez? Who knows, but we should be afraid.

* Current musings by Jhonen Vasquez can be found at his LiveJournal blog or at his website QuestionSleep.com

* For Jhonen Vasquez comics and graphic novels go to SLAVE LABOR COMICS

"After doing Johnny I wanted to just do something, I wouldn't say innocent, but to not have any care in the world. Lots of setups and horrible happenings but its funny."
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"All the power to them but I'm not interested in making yet another show that looks like some other show."
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"As I got farther and farther along in the series I did less and less preparation. I didn't use outlines or sketches. I just had a vague idea of what I wanted to tell and then the dialogue just came to me as I was inking the page."
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"At this very moment I'm behind on a compilation that Slave Labor is doing for Free Comic Book Day."
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"Because of the audience I get and the fact that these people aren't traditional comics buyers I don't think the comic industry looks at that and thinks that is a very respectable thing. I'm very used to it. I'm not the guy who wins awards and gets mentioned in magazines."
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"But I couldn't draw as fast as she requested. Thus, I tried to create the worst abomination of a comic that I could, so as to make her not want comics anymore. That abomination, my friends, was Happy Noodle Boy."
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"But now I have a lot of little kids who watched Invader Zim whenever they could find it on television."
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"Ever since I'm done with Zim everyone thinks that I'm going to go back to comics. I've been flooded with emails asking me if I'm working on the new Johnny over and over again."
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"Goth culture, as mired in the past as it is, even it goes through changes, so Goth when I was growing up is not what it is now. When I think of Goth culture as it is at the moment I think of mall culture."
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"I could go through a lot of my old emails from when I first started doing comics. Back then the lowest age of fans was like 15 or 16 up to people in their 20's and 30's."
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"I don't particularly dislike any kind of person that might be reading my stuff. They like it and that's cool, but I don't do the work for any kind of group in particular, except for hobos, who just plain kick ass and light up my life."
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"I don't want little kids reading my comics."
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"I got to draw monsters, robots and write funny stories. I loved doing that stuff and working with the actors. But it got to be less and less that stuff and more about trying to be everywhere and not being able to do one thing very enjoyably."
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"I love the show and a lot of what came out of it, like some of the people I met and got to work with, but those were truly some of the unhappiest days of my life."
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"I take little bits and pieces of ideas that I may or may not believe in but I give them to this character and he runs with them. I have fun with however he handles the situation."
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"I think there is something a little too self conscious about enjoying being an outsider."
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"I'm definitely incredibly attracted to the aesthetic of what is typically deemed goth stuff, but. A lot of my experience growing up was in being around that kind of thing, and it's just what sinks into a person's brain."
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"I'm just doing little bits and pieces for other magazines right now."
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"In certain ways it is incredibly damaging considering the stuff I did before certainly wasn't for kids."
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"It's sort of what the Johnny and Devi stories are about, the idea of always being a slave to something."
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"Johnny was the very first book I did."
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"Money is not happiness. Being able to pay your rent is happiness but a third season of being in hell would not have been worth it."
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"Retro looking stuff but a lot of these guys doing these shows are my age or younger. I was just disgusted. I hated being aroun