Jhonen Vasquez

Jhonen Vasquez
Vasquez in December 2023
Born	(1974-09-01)September 1, 1974 San Jose, California,U.S.
Other names	Chancre Scolex Mr. Scolex
Occupations	Cartoonist animator writer producer director
Years active	1992–present

Jhonen C. Vasquez(/ˈdʒoʊ.nɛnˈvæs.kɛz/;born September 1, 1974) is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and director. He is best known for creating theJohnny the Homicidal Maniaccomic book series (alongside its spin-offsSquee!,I Feel Sick,andFillerbunny) and theNickelodeonanimated seriesInvader Zim.

Early life

Jhonen C. Vasquez was born inSan Jose, California,on September 1, 1974. He is of Mexicanand Venezuelandescent. He grew up inEast San Joseand attendedMt. Pleasant High School,where he spent much of his class time drawing in sketchbooks.

Vasquez was a fan ofDisney animated featuresgrowing up, and found himself even more fascinated by alternative animation by filmmakers such asRalph Bakshi.Vasquez citedThe Plague DogsandFlight of Dragonsas two of the most personally influential animated films he saw in childhood, while at the same time in live action, he found himself most influenced by Ridley Scott'sAlien.

Vasquez also read his older brother's superhero comics as a child, but first became interested in exploring the medium through the originalTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtlescomics byPeter LairdandKevin Eastman.He said:

It wasn't until I started collectingNinja Turtlescomics that something switched over in my head. To me, there was something just so different about those books that I did start to obsess over them—the way the books felt dirtier in my hands, the filthy artwork and hero characters that never seemed healed over from their last battles. There was a sense of person just behind the printed page that I had never felt before, a thinner separation from production to my hands and eyes that just fired hooks out into me... it felt unsafe, ya know? It's like, the book itself was less removed from the initial moment a creator is excited about having just come up with some great idea to when they finally finish a thing, nice and polished and just a little dulled from before the thing was just another book. To me, anyhow. It's just what I interpreted the experience like, and I'm sure to a lot of people it was just a book about big mutant turtles.

During high school, Vasquez took part in a contest to design a new look for his school's mascot. He earned no prizes; however, on the back of a preliminary drawing for the contest, he drew his first sketch of who would later become the title character ofJohnny the Homicidal Maniac,and the student newspaper published a number of his comic strips featuring Johnny. He also createdHappy Noodle Boywhile attending Mt. Pleasant.

After graduating in 1992, he became a film student atDe Anza CollegeinCupertino, California.Despite having little formal artistic training, he soon dropped out of De Anza to pursue a career as a professional cartoonist. He metRoman DirgeandRosearik Rikki SimonsatAlternative Press Expoin 1995; Dirge later became a writer on Vasquez's seriesInvader Zim,while Simons joined the show's coloring team and voiced Zim's erratic robot sidekick GIR. Simons also worked with Vasquez on the coloring seen in his two-issue comicI Feel Sick.In September 1996, Vasquez announced in his introductory text to the sixth issue ofJohnny the Homicidal Maniacthat the comic book had been successful enough for him to quit his day job and focus on his art.

Career

Comics

Carpe Noctemmagazine published early one-page strips featuring Johnny in the early 1990s. In 1995,Slave Labor Graphicsbegan publishing a series of Johnny comics 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 namedJohnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut.The cover features the logo "Z?", meaning "question sleep", which appears frequently throughout Vasquez's work and relates to his characters'insomniaand his ownhypnophobia.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 as well as, briefly, his own. 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 ofJohnny 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 notorious "Meanwhile" filler piece in the second issue ofJohnny the Homicidal Maniac.Vasquez's next project wasThe Bad Art Collection,a 16-page one-shot comic. He stated that he did the book's art while he was in high school to discourage classmates from asking him to draw for them.

In 1997, Vasquez gaveSquee,a supporting character fromJohnny the Homicidal Maniac,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 ofJohnny the Homicidal Maniac,as well as comics of Vasquez's "real life" andWobbly-Headed Bob.Vasquez's next project wasI Feel Sick,colored by Rikki Simons.I Feel Sickfollows a tortured artist named Devi (another character introduced inJohnny the Homicidal Maniac) 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 threeFillerbunnymini-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 theSquee!comics.

Vasquez said at the 2007New York Comic Conthat the originalFillerbunnycomics would be done in a single night and he would rush through and do 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 he feels it is of much higher quality than the first two. At Comic-Con 2005, Vasquez mentioned that his next comic was a love story. Since this, however, he attended an event in early 2007 and stated he was not working on his "own" comics – he was collaborating on two comics in the style ofEverything Can Be Beaten,acting only as author. The first, titledJellyfist,was intended for release on July 25, 2007, but the initial print run ofJellyfistwas incredibly poor, and so it was re-released in October 2007. In 2009, Vasquez collaborated with other alternative artists inMarvel Comics'Strange Tales,issue 2 of 3, with a story aboutMODOK.It sold extremely well and all three issues have been collected into a hardcovertrade paperback.The next year he returned for Marvel'sStrange TalesII, issue 1 of 3, with a story aboutWolverine.

In 2012,DC Comicsannounced that Vasquez joined the writing team for their digital comicBeyond the Fringe,based on the Fox TV seriesFringe.In May 2014, Vasquez announced on hisTumblrpage that he would be re-releasing his previousFillerbunnycomics into a new collection and additionally releasing his first new comic book in ten years.

Television

AtNickelodeon,Vasquez created the animated television seriesInvader Zim,which aired on the network and then later on Nicktoons. It focuses on the daily life ofZim,a naïvealienfrom the planet Irk who tries to conquerEarthand enslave humans, before his attempts are constantly thwarted by a young paranormal investigatorDib,who believes that Zim is an alien but no one believes him. The first episode aired on March 30, 2001. The series lasted for two seasons, before it was cancelled by Nickelodeon, saying that its main causes were low ratings, over-budget production and lack of interest in continuation of the series.The last episode before the show's cancellation, "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever" (a Christmas special), aired on December 10, 2002. Episodes of the third season and a finale then remained unfinished. Vasquez provided the voices forZim's computer,Old Kid,Minimoose,and various characters including himself as a background character (being credited as "Mr. Scolex" ). Vasquez later returned to Nickelodeon in 2016 to writeInvader Zim: Enter the Florpus,a TV movie based onInvader Zim.

Vasquez also did character designs for the Disney XD showRandy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja,as well as wrote for an episode of the online seriesBravest Warriors.In July 2014, it was revealed thatDisney Television Animationhad picked up the pilotVery Important House,co-created by Vasquez andRick and Mortyproduction designer Jenny Goldberg, who previously collaborated with Vasquez onJellyfist.However, on September 30, 2016, Vasquez announced on his official blog thatVery Important Housewas ultimately not picked up for a full series;The Art of Invader Zim,which released in 2019, mentions thatVery Important Housewas passed due to executive leadership changes atDisney Branded Television.

Other work

Vasquez collaborated with Crab Scrambly to produce the storybookEverything 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 Beatenis 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". The storybook inspired Urban Squall in 2008 to create thepuzzlebrowser gameBloody Fun Day.Vasquez did the entire artwork for the deluxe edition of theMindless Self IndulgencealbumIfas well as the digital single "Mastermind". He also directed the music videos for Mindless Self Indulgence's "Shut Me Up"and The Left Rights' "White".Jhonen made the cover art for the albumZero DaybyMC Frontalotand also indicated that he shows his artwork in galleries from time to time.He also did an art rendition ofBioShock 2called "The Sisters".He was quoted saying the following about the rendition:

Who says kids are good for nothing other than emergency food in disaster conditions? I don't, because at this point my badass nieces helped out quite a bit for reference. I dragged them, much like Big Sister there, out for a quick photo session and we had a damn fine time in freezing winds posing like the little, demonic wee ones that they are. Being my niece, the youngest had no problem finding that place in her heart that allowed her to simulate the howling face of a child being dragged down a nightmare alley by an unspeakable horror. Throw in a tall, monstrous friend of mine to stand in for Big Sister and you have four people with chattering teeth and trying to steal my jacket. After that, the line-art came pretty easily enough, save for an adjustment period of finding the balance between a more realistic style and not losing the strange cartoonishness.

He also worked on aTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesshort calledDon Vs Raph,where Donatello and Raphael compete to see who is better, but the two always end up tying.

Style

Vasquez's characters are often highly geometric and thin with heavy black outlines, almost to the point of resemblingstick figures.The protagonists in his comics are typically mentally unstable characters who live in dysfunctional societies, and whose manias are able to speak through inanimate objects. His storylines tend to follow a basicdark comedyformula. His art style is very edgy and eccentric, andsmiley facesare found throughout his artwork, trying to evoke an ironic sense of happiness in a world of chaos and darkness. Much of his writing conveysmisanthropicandpessimisticthemes, often for the purposes of parody and satire. Several of his works have featuredgothcharacters or depictions of that subculture for the purpose of satire. In an interview onThe Screen Saversin 2005, he responded to hostKevin Pereira's comment that fans considered him "a goth king" by quipping, "King, yeah, but not goth... I mean, that's arrogant."

Bibliography

Year	Title	Notes
1995–1997	Johnny the Homicidal Maniac	7 issues
1996	The Bad Art Collection
1997–1998	Squee!	4 issues
1999–2000	I Feel Sick	2 issues
2000, 2005, 2014	Fillerbunny	3 issues
2002	Everything Can Be Beaten	With Crab Scrambly
2003	Slave Labor Stories	Two page story "The Ghost with Black Fingers"
2007	Jellyfist	With Jennifer Goldberg
2009–2010	Strange Tales MAX	MODOKstory in Strange Tales #2 andWolverinestory in Strange Tales II #1
2012	Beyond the Fringe	WithBecky Cloonanand Andy Belanger, issues 5A and 6A
2015–2021	Invader Zim	50 issues, with multiple others

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001–2002	Invader Zim	Creator, writer, character designer, executive producer and voice actor	Television series
2005	"Mariachi Robo"	Director, executive producer and voice actor	Television series
2006	"Shut Me Up"	Director	Music video
2011	"White"	Director	Music video
2012–2015	Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja	Character designer(credited as Chancre Scolex)	Television series
2014	Bravest Warriors	Writer	Episode: "The Puppetyville Horror"
2015	TMNT: Don Vs Raph	Creator, writer, voice director, character designer	Television short
2016	Very Important House	Co- Creator, director, writer, voice actor	Pilot
2019	Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus	Creator, director, writer, executive producer and voice actor	Streaming television film

Awards and nominations

• Squee!was nominated for 1998Eisner Awardsfor Best New Series and Best Humor Publication.
• I Feel Sickwon an International Horror Guild Award in 2000 for Best Illustrated Narrative.
• Invader Zimwon an Emmy, an Annie, and the award for Best Title Sequence at the 2001 World Animation Celebration awards. It also garnered seven other nominations.
• Vasquez and his work were honored in the National Design Triennial: Inside Design Now, a 2003 exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
• Vasquez received theInkpot Awardin 2015.

External links

• Official website
• Jhonen VasquezatIMDb
• An Interview on SuicideGirls.com
• Revolution Science Fiction (October 26, 2001): "Death and Morons: The Jhonen Vasquez Story"(online-chat transcript)
• Jhonen Vasquez Spotlight (2007 New York Comic Con speech Podcast. 54:12m)Downloadable mp3
• Interrogation Special with Zoetica Ebb(August 22, 2007)