Podcasts

YR via RSS

For Educators
Teach Youth Radio
Curriculum

Youth Programs
CORE
Outreach

Homicidal Maniac

Youth Radio meets comic book artist Jhonen Vasquez in a dark alley.

By Michael Puerto (introduction by Margarita Rossi)

Jhonen Vasquez is the creator of the comics Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee!, I Feel Sick, and the cartoon Invader Zim. His work is dark, moody, and violent, but also intelligent and incredibly funny. Looking into his comics you get a glimpse into a world where a biting remark can easily be interchanged with a bite of your flesh. But don’t worry, it’s all in fun. And besides, Invader Zim was on Nickelodeon, so you know its good. (Oh yeah, his work is just the teensiest bit sarcastic.) Youth Radio’s Michael Puerto got a chance to sit with Vasquez and pick his brains at the 2003 Alternative Press Expo.

Youth Radio: What inspired you to create comics?

Jhonen Vasquez: I don’t think it was a matter of inspiration. I didn’t suddenly go, “I’m going to do comics.” It was just from childhood. I just never stopped drawing. I love writing and I love drawing and it just came naturally. I just put the pictures to my words and words to my pictures. It was just a natural evolution. Like I said, I didn’t have a dream of making comics at all. I just do them. It just so happened that I got lucky enough to get them published. So nothing really changed from when I was a little kid to now. It’s just that now I get paid for it kind of.

As far as what inspires me in general when I’m doing comics: anything. Just stepping outside of my house, just the thoughts that go on in my head, reading books and being inspired by movies and video games and all the stuff that matters to me.

YR: Will there be anymore Invader Zim episodes?

JV: There will be some probably that haven’t been seen. As far as any new ones, any ones that would be produced after the show was pretty much canned, probably not. I really doubt it. The show was not a big ratings success for Nickelodeon so I really doubt they’d put the money into making more of them because it was a very expensive show for them to produce.

YR: Will there be any Invader Zim DVD box sets?

JV: I wish. I get that question all the time and I’m not the one to ask because I’m not the guy who does the merchandising. You know that’s Nickelodeon, Viacom. Whoever it is who puts out the DVDs. Paramount maybe. So I don’t know. I would love to see them on DVD. I mean the shows are so great looking that it just seems perfect for it, but again, since it wasn’t that great a success for them, they’d be putting more money into something that they seemed to not like in the first place ‘cause they’re stupid.

YR: How did you get signed with Nickelodeon?

JV: I’m guessing that some form of unstoppable evil had something to do with it. I’m not entirely sure. I just sort of woke up one day and was working for a kids’ network. It was never a dream of mine, but it turned out that way. A lot of people sort of come to these conventions, like executives, looking for the next “thing” to turn into something else and that’s pretty much how it happened here. Someone from Nickelodeon called up my publisher and said, “Hey we’re interested in meeting him and asking him if he wants to do a show.” That’s how it happened and I said yeah, just because I wanted a cartoon and I rued the day.

YR: What is your advice for a beginning artist?

JV: Don’t take any advice. That’s the best advice that I could think of ‘cause honestly, when I was first doing stuff, I didn’t give a s--- not because I thought I was some sort of badass. I just really was oblivious. I wasn’t part of the comics world, wasn’t part of the animation world or anything like that. It was just something I did on my own time. So I didn’t know what you were supposed to do and how something was supposed to look and how a comic was supposed to be put together. I just did it my own way and didn’t have any of the worries that a lot of people have ‘cause they come to me and they say, “Oh I’m trying to get my book published and I don’t know if I’m good enough.” I never did any of that. I never worried. I never just gave a s---. My stuff could have been s---, but I didn’t know and didn’t care. I just submitted it and didn’t really worry too much of what other people might think. So my advice is no advice. It’s not really anything I can really relate to, taking advice from people who know how to get into the business.

YR: Will you be doing anymore TV shows, cartoons?

JV: Oh God. No time too soon. I’d love to film, but animation no. Not kids’ animation anyhow. It takes too long and there’s too many people telling you what’s right and wrong. It’s just madness, absolute madness.

YR: What projects do you have planned for the near future?

JV: I’m working on comics, sort of unnamed stuff right now. Working on some new comics. Working on some old t-shirt designs that I sort of have fun doing for older books that I never had the time to do t-shirts for. Just sort of on my own time. Painting, writing — that stuff that I’m going to sell just for me. Just for me, just to remember what it was like because working in animation, that was my life for five years. I didn’t have a life. So now I have time to do anything I want. So I’m trying not to do anything that’s going to give me a deadline right now ‘cause I’m kind of really sick of them. So I’m just relaxing.

— Michael Puerto is a student at Oakland High School.