Johnny the Homicidal Maniac ~ Week 14

For this week we were asked to read web comics in particular Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. They stuff the title of the reading I really didn't know too much about the author subject matter besides what the title specified. Then I realize it’s the art work style of Invader Zim which I watch as kid. So I ended up reading some Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is the first comic book by Jhonen Vasquez. The series tells the story of a fictional serial killer named Johnny C. as he explores the psychological and possibly supernatural forces, which compel him to commit a string of murders. The series produced two spin-offs titled Squee! and I Feel Sick.

The series focuses on Johnny C., a deranged killer who elaborately slaughters anyone who irritates him. He drains his victims of blood to paint over a wall in his house to prevent a monster from escaping. He likes stars, the emotionless function of insects, watching people get abducted by aliens, etc. Not that much is known about Johnny's history. All that is known is that his parents were killed by an evil man, thus setting the course for Johnny's life as a masked crime fighter, or, perhaps not. At present, Johnny’s more his own enemy than any external mind could be. What with the discomposure of what may have been, at one time, a fine, intelligent mind. Johnny is, possibly, more hideously mentally malformed than the people he seems to think have ruined his world.

Todd Casil, better known as Squee after the noise he makes

when frightened, is a young boy who lives next door to Johnny. Both of his parents have no care for him, especially his father who works countless hours and leads a miserable life after having Squee as a child. His only shown friend other than Johnny is a small teddy bear that he carries around named Shmee. Shmee tells Squee that all his fears and nightmares are inside him in a dream. Squee is also friends with Satan's son, with whom he attends school.

The art style that the artist uses for this comic really cements the subject matter.  For example the line work is scratchy and not perfect, which can help show that Johnny or Todd’s life story isn’t all sunflowers and sunshine. That there is a dark presents from them. The line work also helps bring in a creepy atmosphere and in some cases it can be cute yet vicious. The reason why I say the artwork can be cute yet vicious has to do with how the artist does his proportions for the figures and how he brings emotion to the characters. An example is on the left. I feel that the little creatures surrounding the boy are cute, but they do have a really creepy atmosphere and tone to them because of how they are drawn. I find that the artist body of work really is fun and interesting even though the subject matter is a guy killing people.

Some little things that I really enjoyed about this comic layout is the artist changes the border of each panel dictating on what’s happening in the frame. For an example from a page from one of his comics on the right, the first long panel on the top has

the traditional nice clean border of Todd trying to sleep with his bear.  Then in the next frame, which is the largest on the page, depicts one of Todd’s nightmares. If you look at the border for this panel it goes from being the traditional clean border two is scratchy, jagged, sharp, uneven border, which complements how awful Todd’s nightmare is. The rough border also visually shows the reader how intense the nightmare is for Todd and the reader can get a clue that something intense happened. The final two frames on the bottom depict Todd waking up. The borders on these two are still jagged and rough but they are not as impactful as the last large frame, which makes sense because Todd is waking up from his nightmare at this point.

If you want to read something creepy, bloody, gory and like reading off-the-wall comics then I personally recommend you to read Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. It is a good fun read with a twist.