I just bought the Directors cut of JTHM(Johnny the Homicidal Maniac) and i loved it so much. It was amazing. I'm just wondering if his other books(i feel sick, squee, jellyfist...) are any good.

I highly recommend 'I Feel Sick'. It's only two books long, but it was really enjoyable. Devi is a great female protagonist. She comes off as very real as much as she is sarcastic.

I also liked I Feel Sick better than JTHM. Filler Bunny was also good. The problem is, Jhonen Vasquez is the biggest a**hole on the face of this planet. Oh well, at least he admits it.

again with the wrong topic also JTHM is great

Moved.

Yeah, I loved I Feel Sick.

JTHM isn't as cool. It's as if IFS is a much more honed and refined idea. It's a scalpel as opposed to a pocketknife (JTHM).
Jonny is good, but Devi is sublime.

oooh i want to read it now!

I Feel Sick is based off his horrible experiences with Nickelodeon while directing Invader Zim. He wanted creative control or at least SOME control over the direction of the show (originally he was going to kill off Dib but Nick was like LOL NO TOO MUCH MARKETING). Nick consistently went over his head to whore the product out and basically asked him to change EVERYTHING at random intervals (hence the tie ins with the story) and he basically fell into this huge depression where he couldn't even work on his stuff anymore (once again, ties into the evil baby doll thing).

I don't think of him as an asshole at all... he's just a guy who got really popular really fast and most of his fans are annoying. He's in the same league as Robert Crumb and Allan Moore; they're great, talented guys but people hound them around every corner so they just lash out at the world.

As far as his other works go, he wrote Jellyfist which is pretty... weird. I want to call it absurd as it's a collection of comic strips with no continuity and have some abstract, existential punch lines with self contained commentary between Vasquez and the artist. The Bad Art Collection is also pretty terrible but he drew that in high school so everyone would stop bothering him about drawing them art. Fillerbunny is good 'ol fun, Squee is awesome, and Invader Zim is still one of my favorite shows.

angry_black_guy
I don't think of him as an asshole at all... he's just a guy who got really popular really fast and most of his fans are annoying.

Actually I've met him and he was a huge jerk to us. We brought him his favorite candy and he didn't even say thank you or talk to us. >:[

I liked JtHM but I when I read it I felt like it was trying a little too hard. The thing I've always liked best about it isn't the comic, it's people's incredible devotion to it. Half the comic is about making fun of people and how mindless they are, and those are exactly the people who have this frightening love for the comic, like they don't realize they're the ones the comic is making fun of.

I liked Squee much more. It has more heart. :)

Actually I've met him and he was a huge jerk to us. We brought him his favorite candy and he didn't even say thank you or talk to us. >:[

That's probably why he didn't thank you. He thought you were another crazed fan... or perhaps he just isn't well versed on social graces *insert other excuses as they come to my mind*

p.s. what is his favorite candy? I'm curious.

vote for personal fav...Fillerbunny

also BAC is an amuseing read ..ish

skoolmunkee
Actually I've met him and he was a huge jerk to us. We brought him his favorite candy and he didn't even say thank you or talk to us. >:[

See? SEE? lol!

Oh and you know that episode 'Bestest Friend' that has the kid, Keef, where he dies a horrible death in the end? It was based on a real freind of Jhonen, who was my neighbor in an apartment complex in L.A. He used to house-sit for Jhonen and he would tell me the cool stuff he had in his house.

I got this close to getting a character design job for Invader Zim--the producers liked my art and I was doing well on the art tests and everything--then poof, they cancelled the show, and that was that. I was so sad. :(

I've always preferred Squee and the Meanwhiles. I mean, who can deny that the guy being abducted and forced to have sex with a chicken by misguided aliens is funny?

I never really got into Jhonen Vasquez himself. But I've never been the type to try and learn everything about the artist. I figure if they wanted me to know they'd just flat out tell me about themselves in the book. I generally like to just look at the work as a stand alone thing and not sit there trying to tie the guys life into it.

Great book...

Squee is funny but I prefer JTHM, more plot.

I Feel Sick is by far the best work JV has ever done (in comics mind you)... Squee being the next. Johnny is actually my least fav of JV's work... not to say it's bad though, just not nearly as well developed as the other stuff.

skoolmunkee edit: Do not revive a dead thread just to post to your comic which has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Drasnus
Great book...

Squee is funny but I prefer JTHM, more plot.

Indeed!

Man, this book takes me back.

I first read JTHM when I was in high school. I haven't looked at it in about three or four years though. I don't know if it will have aged well for me or not.

Jhonen Vasquez has a very limited back catalog. You'll exhaust all his stuff very quickly. (Even if you track down those short pieces he did for Too Much Coffee Man and Strange Tales)

I think "I Feel Sick" is the best comic he ever did. The colors on it are fantastic and the story is both funny and minimally whiny.

Jhonen did something for Too Much Coffee Man? That's cool! I didn't think anyone but Shannon Wheeler drew that!
I gotta say I've got some mixed feelings about Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Jhonen Vasquez's comics in general. They're good comics and all but they ended up setting the standard for what Slave Labor Graphics puts out. Nearly every Slave Labor book is basically by Jhonen Vasquez or someone trying to be like him. There are some exceptions, sure and I guess I can't fault him for that anyway. It just bugs me is all. I'll pretty much agree with everyone here and say the I Feel Sick is his best comic.

patrickdevine
Jhonen did something for Too Much Coffee Man? That's cool! I didn't think anyone but Shannon Wheeler drew that!
I gotta say I've got some mixed feelings about Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Jhonen Vasquez's comics in general. They're good comics and all but they ended up setting the standard for what Slave Labor Graphics puts out. Nearly every Slave Labor book is basically by Jhonen Vasquez or someone trying to be like him. There are some exceptions, sure and I guess I can't fault him for that anyway. It just bugs me is all. I'll pretty much agree with everyone here and say the I Feel Sick is his best comic.

For a while Too Much Coffee Man was a magazine. In addition to strips by Wheeler, it also had comics by other people as well. (Arsenic Lullaby and The K Kronicles were featured among others) There were also print articles, interviews, and record reviews and such.

Jhonen Vasquez contributed a couple of one-page gag strips to a few issues.

I Feel Sick is definitely good, but I really JTHM/Squee! is Jhonen at his best. I guess I just prefer the shorter vignettes to one long narrative (which you would THINK would make me like Jellyfist more than I do)

I'd definitely give Squee a read, some of the random, of the wall strips in there are my favourites (the hideous vampire and the giant dust mite in particular) but not Wobbly Headed Bob. I'm sure you're meant to hate him and it feels like it's directed at somebody, but.....gyah. It's like Happy Noodle Boy. Reading those gives me brain ache.

I feel dumb. I found this today ("Director's Cut"). Funny stuff. Terribly funny.

I'll have to hunt down I Feel Sick. I got 1 or 2 issues as they came out in my shop, but never saw anything beyond that-- at the same time Zim was coming out, I figured he got occupied by the animation world and didn't have time for the comic...

My memory on that is fuzzy... seem like maybe my store just stopped ordering it. Now I have something to look for at WonderCon.

Squee and JHTM are among my favorites-- which I don't revisit as often as I used to.

I did meet Jhonen once at APE over a decade ago, and remember thinking he was different than what I had expected, but he wasn't an ass, so far as I could tell. Perhaps not as... uhm... humble as many other creators appear, but he was fairly normal towards people. Actually, at the time, I think one of the early editions of the JHTM trade was out (I bought the individual issues), and I guess there were publication issues with the books falling apart. There were 3-5 people ahead of me in line to meet him and they all had the JHTM book and I think every single one fell apart when he opened it to sign it! I think he may have made some comments about that...

mattchee
I'll have to hunt down I Feel Sick. I got 1 or 2 issues as they came out in my shop, but never saw anything beyond that-- at the same time Zim was coming out, I figured he got occupied by the animation world and didn't have time for the comic...

i feel sick is a 2 issue miniseries. he didn't make more, as the story is rather clearly finished.

I must have only gotten #1 then.... ?

Its been a while. It, or they are packed away... time for some digging!