Squee

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Squee can be an exclamation, or interjection, of excited happiness or surprise, especially when referring to fangirls, or be a squeal of glee over something incredibly cute. It also refers to an animal seen in the computer game Myst III: Exile.

Squee looking quite scared
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Squee looking quite scared

Squee is a fictional character in Jhonen Vasquez's comic book Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, who later received his own four-issue series, published by Slave Labor Graphics. Squee is a small child who lives next door to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, as well as the Antichrist, and is one of the few recurring characters in that series to have met Johnny and survived (Devi being the other exception), thanks to Squee's overabundant cuteness and rapidly-deteriorating innocence. His real name is Todd Casil—the nickname "Squee" comes from the sound he makes when he is frightened, which is quite often within his world.

In the course of the comic, Squee gets abducted by extremely idiotic aliens (who will later make an appearance in Invader Zim), neglected by his parents, forced to have dinner with Satan and the antichrist, gets attacked by his zombie classmates (and saved by aforementioned antichrist), scared by wrongful dookie-ing, and attacked by a giant dust mite.

Squee suffers horrible neglect from his parents. His mother is constantly self-medicated. As a result, she’s never quite aware of Squee's existence, nor does she wish to be. His father loathes Squee with every fiber of his being and has no qualms about telling Squee this, and often does so repeatedly. The faces of Squee's parents are only shown on occasion, and when they are, they are drawn in shadow or silhouette as a version of the unseen character trope (Although what appears to be them does appear in the final Squee page).

Squee goes to school where he is bullied and has no friends (similar to numerous other characters in Vasquez's fiction). In one episode, his classmates are shown as zombies. The teacher is a didactic hag. She later appears as Ms. Bitters in another of Jhonen Vasquez's work, Invader Zim.

Pepito is Squee's other classmate and coincidentally the antichrist, born of a union between Satan (or Señor Diablo, as he calls himself) and a Christian woman. Pepito likes Squee because Squee secretly agrees with his apocalyptic ranting. Pepito attempts to get Squee to join the dark side and be his friend, but Squee refuses. Not unlike Johnny, Pepito continues to be his friend (and tormentor). Pepito also happens to wear an outfit that resembles Gaz's black dress from Jhonen Vasquez's animated television series, Invader Zim.

Shmee.
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Shmee.

Squee carries around with him an old teddy bear by the name of "Shmee", who appears to be a less developed or influential version of Johnny's "voices". Shmee claims to be a "trauma sponge" who protects Squee, absorbing his pain and fear. There are sinister overtones that there is a darker aspect to him. Shmee often encourages Squee to do evil or horrible things to people, similar to Johnny's Doughboys, but unlike Johnny, Squee ignores these instructions, most likely due to his overwhelming innocence and lack of anger, bitterness or malice towards his world. Shmee claims that because of him, Squee will not end up like Johnny

The comic ends with Squee's committal to an insane asylum, in which Johnny is a volunteer for a sleep study.

[edit] Trivia

Invader Zim appears several times, such as the drawing in Squee's room, or when Shmee addresses one of his fears as "Aliens".

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors (1998) SLG Publishing (ISBN 0-943151-24-4)
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