Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
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Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (also known as JTHM) is a black-and-white comic book series written and drawn by Jhonen Vasquez. It began as a series of short strips in the goth magazine Carpe Noctem, and was later published in seven issues by Slave Labor Graphics between August 1995 and January 1997. The series later had two spin-offs, called Squee! and I Feel Sick.
The comic is a black comedy laced with irony and social criticism. It is in part a satire of society’s fascination with violence. Despite this, the comic itself has been criticized for glorifying violence, and has sparked some controversy.
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[edit] Johnny C.
- Main article: Johnny C
The series focuses on anti-hero Johnny C, also known as Nny (short for Johnny, so, it is pronounced “knee”). He is a deranged serial killer, mass murderer, and spree killer who interacts with various other characters, generally by torturing and murdering them. He elaborately and sadistically kills anyone who even slightly irritates him, then drains their blood and paints one of the walls in his house with it ('to keep the Thing from getting out'). If the situation dictates, Johnny is also willing to murder "innocent" people who, in his twisted mind, deserve their fate for some reason or another. The number of Johnny’s victims is in the dozens, if not hundreds — or perhaps even thousands. Authorities are unable to capture Johnny and seem unaware of his existence, even though his crimes are often witnessed in public and reported by the few who manage to survive.
In the JTHM Director's Cut, it is said that Johnny's parents were murdered by an "evil man". It goes on to say that he became a masked crime fighter. Nothing is known of Johnny's family or of his past — even Johnny is deprived of all but occasional flashes of memory. He is often devoid of a conscience, though this is arguable since he is also insane. This insanity manifests itself in several entities, such as Nailbunny, the closest thing to a conscience that Nny possesses; and Psychodoughboy and Mr. Eff (Fuck), two styrofoam Pillsbury doughboys that argue over whether to let Nny kill himself. Later in the story a new character from Nny's mind arises, Reverend Meat, who attempts to invoke feeling in Nny as he searches for freedom.
[edit] Secondary Characters
[edit] Devi
Nicknamed "The Girl That Got Away", Devi was the 2nd victim of Nny's who actually escaped. She's also the only woman Nny has ever truly felt any real feelings for. He met her in the bookstore she once worked in before she became a professional artist, and went on a date with her that ended in almost being able to kiss her, but instead he felt so happy that he wanted to 'immortalize the moment' and attacked her. Instead, she beat him up and fled. Ever since, he has been occasionally trying to contact her to apologize and try and explain his odd reasons for trying to kill her, in which she responds to by locking herself in her house and screaming at him over the phone. Later, I Feel Sick was released to show Devi's side of the story, who changed a great deal psychologically, and was taking on the personality of Jhonen Vasquez's feelings towards Nickelodeon. It also shows a connection between Sickness and The Moose (Nny's bloody walls that command him to kill), and the two have a connection through the same evil master and are both dealing with the same destructive forces.
[edit] Squee
A sad and lonely little boy, Squee (or Todd Casil, before Nny renamed him) lives in the house across the street from Johnny. About 7 or 8 years old, Squee is frightened by almost everything, he is terrified of his evidently disturbed neighbor. Nny takes a shine to Squee, seeing him as something of a little brother from the family he can't remember/never had. Squee's parents despise him and wish that he was never born. Their detachment from their son also prevents them from noticing the numerous occasions in which Johnny breaks into the house. Squee's only true friend is a teddy bear named Shmee. It talks to Squee and tells him the badness of the world, though only Squee can hear its voice. The talking bear, or anything inanimate that talks (relating to Devi's "Sickness" doll, or Johnny's Doughboys) suggest's that Squee will one day share in the same mental illness that plagues Nny. Fortunately for Squee, being a child he is currently immune to the evil impressions of the world. For the moment, at least. Squee also got his own spinoff series, called Squee!
[edit] Setting
The series is set in the mid-1990s in an unnamed American city resembling Los Angeles. Decaying suburban 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. (Interestingly, though the backdrop is that of complete urban decay, most of the incidental characters are noticeably middle-class. This might suggest that the world presented is how Johnny interprets the world.)
Johnny lives amid the urban sprawl on a suburban street in house number 777: a decrepit, single-story house that has an extensive labyrinth of basements and tunnels beneath it that happened to be there before Johnny moved in. Johnny uses the subterranean rooms of the house for dungeons and torture chambers. The tunnels also provide him with a network to various locations, such as his neighbor’s residence. Johnny found the house and moved in some time before the beginning of the series, and uses it as a base of operations for his murderous rampages. Johnny also has to feed the "thing" living in the wall, which comes out after he dies.
A later part of the story takes place in the afterlife. After accidentally shooting himself, Johnny journeys to Heaven and Hell, and both turn out to have more in common with the city than Johnny expected. In short, he is kicked out of both places and returns to life (minus most of his hair). Johnny wonders if he really died at all, or if he experienced some sort of dream or delusion. Johnny's wounds are miraculously healed and his neighbor Squee meets the same Satan Johnny did in JTHM's followup. This leaves readers to assume that either this experience actually occurred or Squee is slowly descending into the same kind of madness that gripped his neighbor.
[edit] Synopsis
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac consists of a collection of strips, each carrying on over several pages. The story is told in a disjointed, non-linear fashion that mirrors the title character’s mental instability. It is often left unexplained which events in the story are objective and which are subjective, and very little back-story is given. This ambiguity again reflects Johnny’s character.
[edit] Issue #1
The story begins when a young boy named Todd Casil (nicknamed Squee, after the noise he sometimes makes when scared) and his family move to a new neighborhood, into house number 779. One night, the terrified boy discovers that his bedroom window has been smashed open, and a trail of blood and broken glass leads down the hall to the bathroom. He tried to get help from his negligent parents. However, his mother blatantly ignored him and his father blamed little Squee for destroying his life (as he has to work to support the family). Accompanied only by his stuffed bear Shmee, who can talk but is only heard by the characters who listen, he walks back to the bathroom and enters to discover a furious Johnny searching the medicine chest for Bactine. Johnny introduces himself to Squee and the child’s teddy bear, Shmee. Johnny carries on a conversation with the bear, which at first amuses Squee, but leads Nny ("Johnny's Homicidal Side") to swearing and repeatedly stabbing the bear in the chest. Apologizing, Nny leaves back through the window in which he came, suggesting that Squee leave the window unlocked (so he would not have to break another) from then on. Squee is unable to sleep for the rest of the night.
One fateful day, a man is taking a survey (about the recent rise in murders around the city) in the neighborhood. He comes upon Johnny, who drags him inside and proceeds to carry on about a dog from three nights before that he thinks was stalking him.
Eventually, he calms down and agrees to take the survey. His answers provide the first real taste of social commentary that is prevalent through the entire 7-issue series. They are rants about the state of humanity and the stupidity of those who believe in the "violent entertainment always leads to violent acts" theory.
Nny is eventually offended when the surveyor suggests that as a murder victim was found without her blood, the killer drinks the blood. Nny explains (vehemently) that he didn't drink the blood, but he needed it. This is the first appearance of "the wall" that Nny must keep continually wet with blood due to the fact that it changes color when it dries. Furious to the point of insanity, he stabs the man several times, and then throws him through the window to the sight of Squee.
Johnny Goes on a killing rampage in a Taco Hell restaurant after somebody calls him 'wacky'. The mass slaughter is preceded by a monologue of how everyone mistreats him because of the way he looks. Later, Johnny is seen in his home watching the news; grinning madly at the horrors he had committed. This glee ends when the reporter quotes from a police officer, "it was wacky."
The first of the four JTHM in which Johnny contemplates suicide as Psychodoughboy, Nail Bunny and later, Mr. Eff attempt to convince him one way or the other. In the end, he decides against it, saved by a commercial about diarrhea.
[edit] Issue #2
Johnny has captured a man named Edgar Vargas who, instead of panicking and threatening, simply talks to him for a while. Johnny admits that Edgar didn't do anything, but he needs his blood to keep the creature in the wall at bay and apologizes for having to kill him, and asks him why he isn't afraid. Edgar explains that due to his faith, he is not scared of death. Johnny mentions that he envies Edgar's conviction, then kills him, ending by saying "Well, that did nothing for me."
Johnny ponders over the noises his victims make. He asks himself, rather than letting the things that sound like words his victims make bother him, why he doesn't just get a pair of earplugs.
Johnny threatens a self-absorbed victim who had made fun of him on a previous occasion. He tells her that he won't kill her because he is 'better than that', but suddenly realises that he's not. Based on this, he then kills her. This ends with a Die-ary entry: "Dear Die-ary, Today I learned that on the inside...I'm pretty fuckin' ugly."
Johnny and Devi, a cashier at a local bookstore go on a date and Devi suggests that they should go to Nny's house. When they arrive, Devi and Johnny talk about how they like each other and why they're dating, which leads up to a kiss until Johnny flips out and runs off into the mirror room. Mr. Eff and Psycodoughboy twist his mind around, Mr. Eff convincing Johnny to try and kill Devi, while Psychodoughboy tries to get him to kill himself. He decides to kill her, to prevent what they have from decay, but Devi defends herself, beats up Johnny, and runs off terrified, leaving Johnny on the ground bleeding.
Nny takes a trip to the local 24/7, to get a cherry Brain Freezy, only to discover that the machine is turned off at 2 a.m. In a fit of despair he decides to kill himself but decides he will kill the clerk as well, so he won't be alone. The clerk pleads for his life but fails to sway Nny, who sees the loss of the brainfreezy as 'another lump in a sea of shit.' Nny takes the cashier's gun (it should be noted that Nny thinks guns should only be used by people who will use them on themselves), and shoots the cashier, and then turns it on himself, only to find the gun had only one bullet. A brief burst of anger follows, cut short when Nny notices that the store sold Cherry Fiz-Wiz. He pays for his purchase and then leaves. Under the counter is a rack of pornographic magazines. Their titles show Jhonen's apparent hate of such things. Jhonen finds the idea of a failed suicide attempt being immediately abandoned humorous, and it is a theme which repeats throughout the series and even shows up in an earlier sketch.
[edit] Issue #3
Feeling down, and with encouragement from Mister Eff, Johnny grabs his Walkman and heads out for a walk, with the hopes that a massacre at a nearby nightclub will cheer him up.
While walking past the Cafe le Prick on the way to the nightclub, Nny is insulted by a man who asks him for a cigarette. Even though he is listening to Ode to Joy on his headphones, Nny detects the insult (his hyper sensitive asshole deteting gland sensed it), and so decides to bring his slaughter to the cafe instead of the nightclub. He thanks the insolent man before entering the cafe and beginning the most violent sequence in the series so far.
Johnny kills the patrons and employees of the Cafe le Prick en masse, humorously justifying each murder as he goes. About half are deserving of what happens to them, the other half are random victims. Ironically, many of his reasons are as superficial as those that he will kill others for expressing. After killing most of those inside, Nny leaves the few survivors with a cryptic command to make the most of the time they have left. This turns out to be not much time at all, as Nny leaves a shrapnel bomb set for a few seconds.
Squee is lost in the mall, his neglectful mother having wandered away from him. A man wearing a Scumby t-shirt appears and claims to know where the little boy's mother is. The man leads Squee to an alley behind the mall, and claims that Mrs. Casil will be meeting them there shortly. In the meantime, he suggest that Squee do him a “favor”. Johnny arrives just in time to save Squee from the pedophile, bashing the man's head with a pole. He then cuts the man's hand off with a knife, and opens the man's skull with a pair of hooks to show Squee that, although the man has a body just like other people, it is only a disguise to hide the vile, "true" human within. Johnny then realizes that his excessive violence may be hypocritical, as he may very well be one of those "malfunctioning machines" he rants about to Squee. He escapes the situation by mentioning "it's Tuesday, and you know what that means - UFO's!" Squee is reasonably unnerved, and runs away.
Johnny tells an amusing and gory anecdote to a torture victim about another torture victim. To Nny's surprise, the listener doesn't find it remotely funny. The victim is later revealed to be Krik, who Nny kidnapped because Krik bullied him while drunk.
This comic follows two goths, Dillon and Tess, who Johnny sat in front of at a viewing of Kafka. Dillon, Tess' best friend, talked through the entire movie, ruining it for Johnny. Dillon is busy making fun of everything to hide his insecurities while Tess is one of the few decent people in Johnny's world. Johnny kidnaps the two for ruining the movie. It ends with Tess, the two both trapped in electric chairs, calling Dillon an "asshole."
In this one, Johnny comes to the realization that he can't die or be caught for his murders due to some external manipulation. He doesn't know what it is, but it bothers him. This comic also reveals that Johnny no longer controls Psycho-doughboy and Mr. Eff who begin moving on their own, even though they're styrofoam. Johnny also brings up the idea that the only thing holding reality together is his awareness of it, which in issue five is proven to be true, as the universe disappears when Nny accidentally kills himself.
Johnny gets a victim to test the contents of his fridge. The victim is bound in some sort of torture device in Johnny's basement and is forced to test if the milk is still good, test the crispness of the lettuce, see if the fudge pops have freezer burn, and "Eat a fuckin' weenie". His answers seem to be satisfactory to Johnny, who then sets the victim free. The victim wanders, very dazed and confused, from Johnny's house.
[edit] Issue #4
Johnny and Nail Bunny journey through the bowels of Johnny's house as they discuss the nature of his psychosis. This one ends with, "Bunny? I'm not happy."
Johnny and Tess have a conversation in Johnny's dungeon about Nny's desire for loss of all feelings and emotions, in which Johnny quotes from The Fly. Mr. Samsa first appears, and Johnny kills him, explaining his immortality. Nny then proceeds to torture Dillon through mild electrocution. Mr. Samsa is named after Gregor Samsa, the main character of Franz Kafka's short story, The Metamorphosis.
Devi and Tonja sit in Devi's apartment. Tonja, frustrated at the fact that Devi will not leave the house for fear of running into Johnny convinces Devi that Nny probably knew she would call the police, and left town. She tells Devi to call Nny, assuring her that there will be no answer. A horrible series of noises follows Nny's answer, which is later explained when Nny shoots himself. Devi hangs up, and states that she "will be staying in tomorrow". This scene also includes an early appearence of Pepito, the antichrist from JTHM's spinoff series Squee!. This early, slightly different design of Pepito can be seen holding the hand of his mother (who is purchasing a book entitled "Raising a Problem Child") in the panel in which Devi recalls the day she saw Nny at the bookstore.
Johnny has rigged up a robotic arm to shoot him if he should speak into the phone or try to turn the arm off. Eff and Psycho taunt him and each other. Johnny stabs Psycho Doughboy and turns the arm off. Unfortunately, it wasn't even on to begin with, so that when he turns it off, he actually turns it on, which explains why the arm didn't shoot him when he thought he had turned it off. The phone rings, Johnny answers it, and the robotic arm shoots Johnny in the face.
[edit] Issue #5
Krik stumbles into Tess and Dillon's dungeon. He tries to free them, but the wall monster breaks in and rips Dillon from the wall (with his leg and arms still tied on). Kirk manages to free Tess and they make a break for it with the wall monster in hot pursuit.
During a brief reprieve, Krik describes to Tess how he ended up in Johnny's clutches. He says he was getting over the loss of a girl, who broke up with him because he was being abusive. Nny pulled up beside him in a car, and Krik began to harass him. The wall monster catches up with them, and Tess and Kirk flee into the nearest room to discover that it is full of restrained victims. The wall monster slaughters them all as the two attempt to escape.
Tess and Krik run into the doughboys, who currently contrast in their moods. Mr. Eff is angry about Nny's accidental shooting while Psycho-Doughboy is enraptured (ironically, as Eff, in the past, represented the optimist). The wall monster discovers them and consumes the doughboys as Tess and Krik stand by in horror.
Anne Gwish goes to a nightclub full of other goths identical to her while she boasts of her originality.
Tess and Krik stumble across the barely-alive Johnny in the upstairs room of his house. Krik begins to stomp on Johnny's skull when suddenly the wall monster breaks through the floor where Johnny had been sprawled. Krik makes a run for the front door, but as he steps over the threshold the monster cuts him in half. Krik falls with the monster screaming into oblivion. Tess looks out to the void and disappears (she however survives, as she is mentioned in Anne Gwish's second strip). All that is left is Johnny floating through space on a section of floorboards.
[edit] Issue #6
In Issue six, Johnny is sent to Heaven when he is shot in the head. He finds out that this is a mistake, and will only be there temporarily. St. Peter gives him a band-aid that he places above the gaping hole. This somehow completely repairs him (as Vasquez mentions in a little note). Johnny meets God. God appears in the form of a fat lazy baby, who admits he has done nothing since creating the earth (his justification being along the lines of "Oh, excuse me, I only created the universe. Maybe I should get up and run a few laps."). Nny is then given a tour of heaven. He finds out that people in heaven have super powers, and can explode other peoples' heads (though any damage done is almost instantly reversed). Nny can't resist the temptation and explodes several heads (reffering to this power as "head-explodey"), triggering a huge altercation. As a consequence, he is sent to Hell.
Johnny drills a hole in the back of a victim's head, then leaves to make them both sandwiches. (This has nothing to do with the storyline. Jhonen Vasquez included the comic because he thought that it was "adorable.")
Johnny meets Señor Diablo. The devil tells him the true nature of his situation; that Nny is a "flusher" whom gathers the excess celestial/mental/spiritual waste that the humans carry in today's society, and flushes them all out with his death. This gives explanation for Nny's basic situation, plus insanity. Nny then gets a tour of hell. The tour is given by a man whom Nny killed. The man starts ranting at him, and Nny, annoyed, kicks him out of the car they are in. He crashes into a store and steals some clothes. He then finds out that the people of Hell are just as conceited and snobby as the people on earth, but on earth, there were "nice people mixed in with the social maggots". Furthermore, Hell's torments are entirely self-inflicted via the damned's petty obsessions. The Devil then shows up in a cheerleader form, attempting to frighten Nny. The Devil then offers to tell Nny about his mysterious past, which Nny can barely remember. Nny asks if he can keep the clothes he stole. The devil says no, and asks him again if he wants to know about his past. Nny obsesses over the clothes, and before the devil can respond, Nny is resurrected, much to the disgust of the devil.
Johnny awakes to find himself alive once more. He discovers that he is alone ("No voices. No doughboys. NOTHING. It's just me."), with the exception of a talking Bub's Burger Boy, named Reverend Meat. He discovers he is still crazy, but is now in control. Johnny decides to celebrate by watching TV with a tin of Pringles and a Brain-Freezy. The band-aid St. Peter gave him is still there, so the reader can conclude that he really did pass over.
Johnny is inside the 24/7 at the counter to buy a Frooty Pop. When a robber comes into the store and shoots the cashier for resisting when asked to hand over the money, Johnny contemplates still paying for the popsicle ("Maybe he had a family. They might need it."). Ten minutes later, Johnny decides that he hates "moral dilemmas" and is seen standing by the dead man with several Frooty Pops (six to be exact).
[edit] Issue #7
In issue 7, we find Nny back at home, brooding. Someone pays him a visit, and Nny is not at all amused to find that someone to be his "biggest fan," a delusional copycat murderer of a teenager named Jimmy (who calls himself Mmy).
Nny listens patiently to the boy's story, his rage building. This erupts after Jimmy makes comments about some of his own victims, one of whom he raped, a killing Tess accused Johnny of earlier on (which he furiously denied). Nny is disgusted by the loss of emotional control and the concept of coming into such contact with a human, provoking Nny into what could be considered the most violent killing of the series. Jimmy is vivisected while Nny keeps up a running rant (as per usual). This rant concerns artists who are faced with their greatest admirers' poor fascimiles of their work. One comment about the rant is that Nny acknowledges that Jimmy's work has more in common with his own than he'd like to think. He ends this segment, smashing Jimmy in the face with a sledgehammer thus crushing his skull, with the statement "I don't like myself much."
(A morbidly amusing note at the bottom of the last page informs us that Vasquez finished that story arc on Christmas and how "festive" it is.)
Johnny makes a disastrous attempt to reconcile things with his would-be love interest, Devi, in the form of a recorded message. Devi does not take too kindly to this. At all. Devi replies "Hey! Shut up! Shut that thing off! Pick up the phone, Nny, you little shit!!"
Nny argues with the Burger boy, Reverend Meat, who believes that Nny should give up his quest for desensitization and give in to his emotions. However, the disembodied voice of Nailbunny tells Johnny to resist, which Nny does, leaving in outrage. Meat then says that everyone is a slave to something.
Nny writes on a paper, and impales the paper on an arrow. Driving to a spot, he shoots the bow-and arrow at a homeless man, killing him. The paper is revealed to say: "KICK ME."
In the end, we see that Nny is paying Squee one last visit. He informs the boy that he will be leaving for a "vacation" to sort things out. Nny's ambition now is to erase all forms of emotion he possesses and become cold like an insect. He warns Squee to be careful, as Nny won't be there to help him out for awhile.
Squee's father interrupts and sustains a severe blow to the back of the head with a toy robot. Johnny thinks about damaging him more, but changes his mind in fear he might become an "olfactory ninja" leaving Squee more scared than ever. Nny departs soon after, leaving Squee with his nightmares.
The seventh issue ends with Johnny sitting on a cliff over looking the city, writing in his "die-ary" that he wants to wash all his emotion away. Apparently, he fails, as in his appearance in Squee! issue 4, where he seems very cheerful.
[edit] Other storylines
The series contains many strips that, for the most part, have nothing to do with the main storyline. Most of these strips are what Vasquez calls “meanwhiles,” the titles of which begin with "Meanwhile…" Some of the other strips follow a public service announcement motif, while others share the title "True Tales of Human Drama". There is also a comic-within-a-comic in the form of "Happy Noodle Boy."
[edit] Anne Gwish
Anne Gwish is a 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 goth culture's tendencies towards pretension.
In most of her strips, you can find puns and parodies on gothic subculture. Like "Johnny the Hamicidal Maniac" (with Johnny as a pig), "Ditchspade Symphony" (a parody of the band, Switchblade Symphony), "The Shmoe" (a rather obvious parody of "The Crow", who proclaims "I stole this look from KISS!") and "The Dirtman" (a 'The Sandman' joke).
Vasquez ends the Anne Gwish strip with an aside comment, "With just a touch of self-mockery," due to his personal goth lifestyle as well as the cultural category his comic books are placed in.
It is possible that "Anne Gwish" is a precarnate idea of Gaz, the Goth sister of Dib in Invader Zim.
[edit] Happy Noodle Boy
Johnny is also the creator of a comic strip called Happy Noodle Boy.
Happy Noodle Boy is a stick figure appearing in a comic drawn by Johnny and read mainly by "the homeless insane". Every issue has (at least) one single-page insert of the Happy Noodle Boy comic itself, detailing the often completely nonsensical adventures (mostly cursing, screaming, and being shot). Happy Noodle Boy spends much of his time standing on a wooden box and yelling nonsense at hapless pedestrians, often provoking his own death.
He appears in the backgrounds of many of the strips of the main storyline (the mall, the movie theatre, etc.), usually in crowd scenes, and pictures of him appear frequently in Squee's room. He also appeared in I Feel Sick 1# in a crowded dance floor. Johnny seems to be in the habit of leaving his drawings lying around.
It is believed that Happy Noodle Boy's name is a reference to Johnny's extraordinarily thin figure. In one particular comic, Johnny says that when he was young, other kids taunted him for this, calling him "Noodle Boy."
[edit] Public Service Announcement
In a few issues there is a "Public Service Announcement," often with exaggerated messages involving events such as a 15-year-old girl taking a bite out of her baby (a la A Modest Proposal) and a drug addict's horrendous puking which results in his left eyeball exploding (The moral at the end of this particular "Public Service Announcement" is "Kids, drugs won't help things. They'll only turn you into a hideous little freak troll-baby with exploding eyeballs.").
[edit] Cut from The Director's Cut
[edit] Wobbly-Headed Bob
Receiving his own one page comic in each book of the series, Wobbly-Headed Bob is a sort of conceited person, but beleives himself to be the 'Ultimate Being' as he is so 'smart'. He is tortured by his own intelligence, and trys to commit suicide. It is impossible for him to commit suicide, even if he jumps off a cliff. ('Why me? WHHYYYY MEEEEE???') Although he cannot die, his words can make people commit suicide. In one comic, he makes everyone he sees either kill themselves or another; a happy couple, two friends (one who is trying to keep his friend from comitting suicide, one who is trying to commit suicide), a man who got a perfect score on his SATs, and two happy parents and their newborn. A girl professes her love for him, but ages 33 years in two minutes, and runs off, leaving Bob 'SO alone'. He finds a dog and a cat, the dog falling off a cliff, but the cat sitting next to him on a grassy hill. At one point, he is actually happy and feels good about himself, but one of his 'friends' says, "...Undying friendship, hope for world peace, the potential of children, and yes!! TRUE LOVE!!" which turns off Bobs happy light, and causes him to be his normal crabby self. (My God, you're stupid.)
[edit] Meanwhiles
The Meanwhiles are strips unrelated to—but in the same fictional universe as—the main storyline. They are usually only a few pages long. They begin with the title, "Meanwhile..." Vasquez himself makes an appearance in several of the Meanwhiles.
While absent in the JTHM: Director's Cut trade paperback (which collected issues one through seven), the Meanwhile strips were later compiled in Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors.
[edit] True Tales of Human Drama
These are silly little stories the author created presumably because he wanted to do something different. Most often in these stories things happen that make little or no sense, such as a baby exploding or a man expelling something out of his nose so evil that a priest commands him to jump off a building.
[edit] List of strips by issue
- 1st issue
- "Traumatize Thy Neighbor"
- "A Survey in Hell"
- Untitled
- Johnny The Suicidal Maniac - "Another 2 a.m."
- 2nd issue
- "Goblins"
- "Things That Make Noise"
- Untitled
- Untitled
- Johnny The Suicidal Maniac - "2:15 a.m."
- 3rd issue
- "Cafe le prick"
- "A Bad Person"
- Untitled
- "Johnny the You-Know-What"
- "Johnny the Suicidal Maniac"
- Untitled
- 4th issue
- "Descent"
- Untitled
- "A * Call"
- "A Call?"
- 5th issue
- "An Eventful Day"
- Untitled
- "Talking To Styrofoam"
- "Anne Gwish"
- "The Most Beloved Massive Headwound Recipient in Existence"
- 6th issue
- "This Is Heaven"
- Untitled
- Untitled
- "JTRM (The "R" is for Resurrected!!)"
- Untitled
- 7th issue
- "An Admirer of Sorts"
- Untitled
- Untitled
- Untitled
- "Good Luck, Squee!"
- Untitled
[edit] Commentary on the Goth subculture
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac has become so particularly popular among participants of the status quo and subcultures (most prominently the Goth movement) that it frequently satirizes out of a good-humored appetite for self-parody; it has become a call for self-improvement to those who latch on to said subcultures—while missing the point—or model themselves stereotypically to the point that they no longer stand for "anything substantial".
It has been suggested by fans that, whether Vasquez intended it or not, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is an homage of the "revenge fantasy".
[edit] References
The film Bite Me, Fanboy features an entire scene dedicated to JTHM and Jhonen's fans.
Invader Zim, a Nickelodeon cartoon created by Vasquez, often features subtle references to JTHM.
The Simpsons television series made a reference to JTHM in "Thank God it's Doomsday" where Homer Simpson was told that, while in heaven, all of his needs or wants would be fulfilled with simply a thought. He followed this by wishing for his tour guide's head to explode. It is widely believed that this wasn't actually an homage, but a ripoff of a similar scene in JTHM.
Northern Va Punk Rock band Booboise referenced JTHM in a song of the same name
JTHM is briefly mentioned in the song "Preacher" by the band My Ruin.
JTHM is mentioned in the song "Goth Girls" by MC Frontalot, a Nerdcore artist.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
