Jhonen Vasquez
From Scratchpad
Jhonen Vasquez (born September 1, 1974), also known by his pseudonyms Mr. Scolex and Chancre Scolex, is a cartoonist living in San Jose, California. He is the creator of a number of alternative comics published by Slave Labor Graphics including Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Squee!, as well as the creator of the animated television series Invader ZIM. Many of his works have developed cult followings.
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[edit] Early life
Jhonen Vasquez, the creator of Invader Zim, was born and raised on San Jose's East Side. After graduating Mount Pleasant high school in 1992, he began film classes at De Anza College. Jhonen, however, is most widely recognized for his comic book works that include "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac," "Squee," and "I Feel Sick: A book about a girl." His JTHM series was first published in Carpe Noctem, an underground Goth magazine out of Mount Pleasant in 1995. Vasquez was soon picked up by Slave Labor Graphics, which is still his current publisher.
Jhonen pitched the idea of Invader Zim when contacted by (now executive producer of the show) Mary Harrington. According to an interview, Jhonen comments on the show:
"The idea of doing a show for Nickelodeon, there's just something so twisted about that," he says. "I'm not out to make some nasty, heinous show that will completely destroy the network or anything like that. "But just the idea, just the thing that I had a show on Nickelodeon, people go, 'YOU? My gawd, what are they trying to do to the children?' And I usually throw my head back and laugh for 10 minutes. And then when I'm done, I say, 'Well, I thought it would be interesting... and it has been interesting -- if not joyous."
[edit] Alternative comics
Carpe Noctem magazine published early one-page strips featuring Johnny in the early 1990s. Slave Labor Graphics began publishing a series of Johnny comics in 1995, after Vasquez submitted samples of his artwork to them. Vasquez's first comic, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, ran for seven issues and was collected as a hardcover and a trade paperback book, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut. The cover has the logo "Z?", meaning "question sleep", which appears frequently throughout Vasquez's work and relates to his characters' insomnia. The series follows Johnny as he searches for meaning in his life, a quest that frequently leads to the violent deaths of those around him.
A photograph of one of Vasquez's friends, Leah England, serves as the middle of a portrait collection on the cover for the second issue of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. England also gave Vasquez the inspiration for a filler strip about a child who was dangerously afraid of losing sight of his mother, as well as the "Meanwhile" filler piece "Somebody put shit in my pants" in the second issue of JTHM.
Vasquez's next project was The Bad Art Collection, a 16-page one-shot comic. Jhonen said that he did the book's art while he was in high school to discourage classmates from constantly asking him to draw for them.
Vasquez met Roman Dirge, Rikki Simons, and Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons at Alternative Press Expo in 1995. Dirge later became a writer on Vasquez's Invader ZIM, while Rikki Simons became the voice of the show's crazed robot GIR, as well as a member of the show's coloring team.
In 1997, Vasquez gave Squee!, a supporting character from JTHM, his own four-issue series. It chronicles Squee's encounters with aliens, Satan's son, and eventually Satan himself. The trade version (which features a cover image of Squee with the words "Buy me or I'll die!") contains, in addition to the actual Squee comics, the Meanwhiles that were left out of the Director's Cut of JTHM, as well as comics of Jhonen's "real life" (with slight exaggerations as to the size of the moon and Señor Diablo's height) and Wobbly Headed Bob.
Vasquez's next project was I Feel Sick, colored by Simons. I Feel Sick follows a tortured artist named Devi (another character introduced in JTHM) as she tries to maintain her sanity in an insane vision of society, despite conversing with Sickness, one of her own paintings.
Slave Labor has published three FillerBunny mini comics, the third having been released in March 2005. The mini comic was a spin-off of a filler comic designed to replace a vacant page usually reserved for advertising space in the Squee comics. Jhonen said[citation needed] that he would procrastinate drawing the cartoon until only hours before the deadline and then rush through and did whatever he could in a small amount of time. The third issue, however, broke this mold. According to the introduction, it took over nine months to complete, and the writer of the introduction feels it is of much higher quality than the first two.
Vasquez collaborated with artist Crab Scrambly to produce the storybook Everything Can Be Beaten, published by Slave Labor in 2002. Vasquez, credited as Chancre Scolex, wrote the story, and Crab Scrambly illustrated it. Everything Can Be Beaten is about a strange person who lives in a room in which he can do nothing but beat kittens. However, an adventure into the outside world changes his perspective, and he discovers that "everything can be beaten."
At Comic-Con 2005, Jhonen mentioned that his next comic was a love story. Since this, however, he attended the 2007 Comic-Con and stated he was not working on his 'own' comics - he was collaborating on two comics in the style of Everything Can Be Beaten, where he acts as author and there is another artist. The first, titled Jellyfist will be released on July 25, 2007. It is unknown what has happened with the love story comic since 2005.
[edit] Television
After the success of Squee!, the children's cable network Nickelodeon approached Vasquez about producing an animated television series. The series, Invader ZIM, was canceled after little more than a year; only 27 half-hour episodes were made, most split into two 11-minute episodes but several full half-hours. Episodes in the second season aired only internationally.
AnimeWorks, a branch of Media Blasters, released the DVD collection Invader Zim Vol. 1 on May 11, 2004. It contains the first nine episodes plus audio commentary by Vasquez and various cast- and crew-members, including Richard Steven Horvitz, Rikki Simons, Melissa Fahn, Wally Wingert, Andy Berman, and Kevin Manthei. The company released Vol. 2 on Aug. 31, 2004, Vol. 3 on Oct. 12, 2004, and a boxed set was released on April 12, 2005. The boxed set contained a "Special Features" DVD with audio-only episodes never aired on Nickelodeon, as well the original uncut version of the Christmas special.
Invader Zim has also run on the cable channels Nicktoons Network, YTV (a Canadian youth network) and MTV2 (in the "'Sic'Emation" block of the latter) and is available on iTunes.
Vasquez also directed the music video for "Shut Me Up" by the band Mindless Self Indulgence
He also voices Professor Namba in Pokemon Chronicles. [citation needed]
[edit] Movie Work
Vasquez has stated at the New York Comic Con and more recently on his LiveJournal that he is currently working on a movie [1]. It is still in the early scripting stages at the moment but if it moves past that he has stated that he will be directing it.
[edit] Style
Many of the characters in Vasquez's cartoons are highly geometric and thin to the point of almost being stick figures. Vasquez's writing often conveys misanthropic and pessimistic themes, though these darker elements are often used for the purposes of parody and satire. Similar styles and mannerisms can be found in many of his characters as well as running gags and common themes, including repeated references to moose, meat, chihuahuas, monkeys, tacos, "piggies", cheese, morbid obesity, and "dookie". Vasquez also frequently sneaks cameo appearances of characters such as Happy Noodle Boy and Johnny The Homicidal Maniac into unrelated works.
David Cronenberg and Kurt Vonnegut have influenced his work. [2] Franz Kafka, H. R. Giger, and H. P. Lovecraft are other influences.
Several of Vasquez's works have featured gothic characters or depictions of the goth subculture for the purpose of satire. In an interview on the show The Screen Savers, Vasquez responded to host Kevin Pereira's comment that fans considered Vasquez "a goth king", saying he does not believe his work should be stereotyped as "goth comics", and that while his intention when creating them was not to create goth comics, that is how the retailers eventually chose to categorize them.
[edit] Fun Facts
1. In the Invader Zim Season 1 DVD, you can hear Jhonen's (and other cast members') comments on production, direction, ideas, concepts plus other interesting tidbits (like the cast eating Wheat Thins) throughout various episodes. There is also a split second of Mr. Vasquez (armed with a puppet of himself!) in the Voice Cast Interview extra.
2. In various season 1 episodes, Jhonen Vasquez makes several cartoon cameos. You can usually spot him with trademark trench-coat, black boots, glasses, and short red hair. So far he's been in the following episodes:
He, Roman Dirge, Steve Ressel, and various other crew members appear in several other episodes. He commented in a recent interview with Revolution Sci-fi that the cameos were getting a bit out of hand, and that there probably would not be any more. [citation needed]
3. Fans wishing to contact Jhonen Vasquez should now send correspondence to him care of SLG Publishing, P.O. Box 26427, San Jose, CA 95159-6427. (Letters only, no packages, please.) The email address he made available to his fans has been put to rest, presumably so he could get some rest himself.
4. Jhonen has voiced most of the Invader Zim Characters such as Nick, Zim's Computer, Brian, Minimoose and many more...
[edit] Jhonen in his Media
Jhonen Appears in most of his own Comics as well as Invader ZIM. He appears in a JTHM MEANWHILE Section where he has magical powers. He goes for a Cherry Slushy (Stating that it is a poor substitude for Human Blood) he goes to a Mini-Mart to find that the Cherry Slurpee machine is busted and finds out that the Clerk is actually the Devil. He stops him and gets the Cherry Slurpee. He finds that two Aliens have abducted the Pope to which Jhonen stops them causing they're Ship to go down in Flames and cause the Pope to Fall from the Space ship. Jhonen appears again in a Comic of I Feel Sick after Devi leaves Mr. Nevers is informed about his 4,oclock. When Jhonen comes Mr. Nevers states that hes going to rape him up the Butt and then throw him out the Window. In Invader ZIM he was seen in earlier episodes. He was one of ZIM's disguise candidates in The Nightmare Begins ("too ugly!") and sat with Steve Ressel in Mc Meaties in Germs. We get a glimpse of him sitting at home in The Wettening, where he chokes on a fish.
[edit] Quotes
- So many years ago, [my little romantical friend in high school] was the unwitting reason Happy Noodle Boy was created. [She] always asked me for comics. 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.
- Very HIGH QUALITY preserved cancer tumors. I ate them. I know it was wrong.
- The mail has been lovely, making me smile like the little girl I wish I was.
- I'm the Puppymaster. I control the puppies
