Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

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Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (also known as JTHM) is a black-and-white comic book series written and drawn by Jhonen Vasquez. It began as a series of short strips in the goth magazine Carpe Noctem, and was later published in seven issues by Slave Labor Graphics between August 1995 and January 1997. The series later had two spin-offs, called Squee! and I Feel Sick.

The comic is a black comedy laced with irony and social criticism. It is in part a satire of society’s fascination with violence. Despite this, the comic itself has been criticized for glorifying violence, and has sparked some controversy.

Johnny C.

The series focuses on (apparent) villain Johnny C., also known as Nny (pronounced “knee”). He is a deranged serial killer, mass murderer, and spree killer who interacts with various other characters, more often than not torturing and murdering them. He elaborately and sadistically kills anyone who even slightly irritates him, then drains their blood and paints one of the walls in his house with it (to keep the Thing from getting out). If the situation dictates, Johnny is also willing to murder "innocent" people, though in his twisted mind, even they deserve their fate for some reason or another. The number of Johnny’s victims is in the dozens, if not hundreds--or perhaps even thousands. Authorities are unable to capture Johnny and seem unaware of his existence, though his crimes are often witnessed in public and reported by the few who manage to survive.

In the JTHM Director's Cut, it is said that Johnny's parents were murdered by an "evil man" but this is an obvious joke; it goes on to say that he became a masked crime fighter. Nothing is known of Johnny's family or of his past--even Johnny is deprived of all but occasional flashes of memory. He is often devoid of a conscience, though this is arguable since he is also insane. This insanity manifests itself in three entities: Nailbunny, who is the closest thing to a conscience that Nny possesses; and Psychodoughboy and Mr. Eff, two styrofoam pilsbury doughboys that argue over whether to let Nny kill himself.

Sometimes, Johnny shows feelings of self-hatred for the horrible things he does. This shows in his many monologues and suicide attempts. He even has what appears to be frightening moments of clarity, but those quickly turn into yet more crazed rants accompanied by bloodshed.

Though his exact age is unknown, Vasquez has been quoted saying Johnny is in his early twenties. Because the comic is in black and white, it was not known until Squee! that Johnny has dark blue hair and light brown skin.

At the end of the comic, Johnny attempts to reform himself by abandoning his emotions in favor of cold intellect, going on what is referred to as a "vacation." This open-ended conclusion leaves room for a second series of comics, but the creator has expressed no interest so far to continue Nny's story.

A running theory on Johnny's origin is that he was once a brilliant artist who lost his talent in drawing and subsequently went insane. Nailbunny chastises Johnny for drawing his Happy Noodle Boy comic ("A god damned stick figure!") instead of Drawing. Vasquez writes that the idea of giving Johnny an origin does not appeal to him at all. He feels that giving Johnny a back-story would dilute his mystery, stating, "[I] find the blurriness of it all much more appealing than making him go nuts over being pantsed in school once. 'YAAAARGH!! I have been pantsed!! I kill like the damned now!!' That's just not done."

However, after such statements had been made, in I Feel Sick there appeared sufficient evidence that Nny's situation was brought on by the combination of being a Wastelock and being targeted by NERVE, a book company somehow related to the creation of self-concious voices such as The Doughboys and Devi's "Sickness".

Setting

The series is set in the mid-1990s in an unnamed American city resembling Los Angeles. Decaying suburban streets, shadowed back alleys and filthy convenience stores serve as the series’ backdrop. Crumbling and covered with litter and graffiti, everything is in a state of bleak decay, overlit by the neon signs of trashy consumer capitalism.

Johnny lives amid the urban sprawl on a suburban street in house number 777: a decrepit, single-story house that has an extensive labyrinth of basements and tunnels beneath it that happened to be there before Johnny moved in. Johnny uses the subterranean rooms of the house for dungeons and torture chambers. The tunnels also provide him with a network to various locations, such as his neighbor’s residence. Johnny found the house and moved in some time before the beginning of the series, and uses it as a base of operations for his murderous rampages. Johnny's house has a mind of its own. Johnny also has to feed the "thing" living in the wall, which comes out after he dies.

A later part of the story takes place in the afterlife. After accidentally shooting himself, Johnny journeys to Heaven and Hell, and both turn out to have more in common with the city than Johnny expected. In short, he is kicked out of both places and returns to life (minus most of his hair). Johnny wonders if he really died at all, or if he experienced some sort of dream or delusion. Johnny's wounds are miraculously healed and his neighbor Squee meets the same Satan Johnny did in JTHM's followup. This leaves readers to assume this experience actually occurred.

Story

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac consists of a collection of strips, each carrying on over several pages. The story is told in a disjointed, non-linear fashion that mirrors the title character’s mental instability. It is often left unexplained which events in the story are objective and which are subjective, and very little back-story is given. This ambiguity again reflects Johnny’s character.

Issue One

\"Traumatize Thy Neighbor\"

The story begins when a young boy named Todd Casil (nicknamed Squee, after the noise he sometimes makes when scared) and his family move to a new neighborhood, into house number 779. One night, the terrified boy discovers that his bedroom window has been smashed open, and a trail of blood and broken glass leads down the hall to the bathroom.So he goes to his parents room finding only his mother to tell her that he heard a noise and saw that the window was broken she rudely tells him to go bother his father whom also rudely ignores him. Terrified, he walks back to the bathroom and enters to discover a furious Johnny searching the medicine chest for Bactine. Johnny introduces himself to Squee and the child’s teddy bear, Shmee. Johnny carries on a conversation with the bear, which at first amuses Squee, but leads Nny ("Johnny's Homicidal Side") to swearing and repeatedly stabbing the bear in the chest. Apologizing, Nny leaves back through the window in which he came suggesting that Squee leave the window unlocked (so he would not have to break another) from then on. Squee is unable to sleep for the rest of the night.

\"A Survey in Hell\"

One fateful day, a man is taking a survey (about the recent rise in murders around the city) in the neighborhood. He comes upon Johnny, who drags him inside and proceeds to carry on about a dog from three nights before that he thinks was stalking him. Eventually, he calms down and agrees to take the survey. His answers, though long-winded, provide the first real taste of social commentary that is prevalent through the entire 7-issue series. They are rants about the state of humanity and the stupidity of those who believe in the "violent entertainment always leads to violent acts" theory. Nny is eventually offended when the man makes a comment about one victim who was drained of her blood. This is the first appearance of "the wall" that Nny must keep continually wet with blood. Furious to the point of insanity, he stabs the man several times, and then throws him through the window. The man's shattered remains land in front of Todd, and by Squee there are the words "You just know this kid's gonna have problems." The last speech bubble on the page reads "ASK A DIFFERENT QUESTION!"

Untitled

Johnny Goes on a killing rampage in a Taco Smell restaurant after somebody calls him 'wacky'. The mass slaughter is preceded by a monologe of how everyone mistreats him because of the way he looks. Later, Johnny is seen in his home watching the news; grinning madly at the horrors he had committed. This glee ends when the reporter quotes from a police officer, "it was wacky."

Johnny The Suicidal Maniac - \"Another 2 a.m.\"

The first of the four JTSM, Johnny contemplates committing suicide as Psychodoughboy, Nail Bunny, and a fetus in a jar attempt to convince him one way or the other. In the end, he decides against it in favour of watching a commercial about diarrhea. (The fetus in a jar is the one to do this, and only has that one line.)

Issue Two

\"Goblins\"

Johnny has captured a man named Edgar Vargas who, instead of panicking and threatening, simply talks to him for a while. Johnny admits that Edgar didn't do anything, but he needs his blood to keep the creature in the wall at bay and apologizes for having to kill him, and asks him why he isn't afraid. Edgar explains that due to his faith, he is not scared of death. Johnny mentions that he envies Edgar's conviction, then kills him, ending by saying "Well, that did nothing for me."

\"Things That Make Noise\"

Johnny ponders over the noises his victims make. He asks himself rather than letting the things that sound like words his victims make bother him, why he doesn't just get a pair of earplugs.

Untitled

Johnny threatens a self-absorbed victim who had made fun of him on a previous occasion. He tells her that he won't kill her because he is 'better than that', but suddenly realises that he's not. Based on this, he then kills her.

Untitled

Johnny and Devi go on a date and Devi suggests that they should go to Nny's house. When they arrive, Devi and Johnny talk about how they like each other and why they're dating which almost leads up into a kiss until Johnny flips out and runs off into the mirror room. Mr.Fuck and Psycodoughboy twist his mind around convincing Johnny to try and kill Devi but Devi defends herself, beats up Johnny, and runs off terrified leaving Johnny on the ground, bleeding.

Johnny The Suicidal Maniac - \"2:15 a.m.\"

Nny takes a trip to the local 24/7 (very different from a 7-11...) Searching for something to drink with his Senor Salsa chips (you'll pee fire!), he decides on a cherry Brain Freezy, only to discover that the machine is turned off at 2 a.m. In a fit of despair he decides to kill himself but decides he will kill the clerk as well, so he won't be alone. The clerk pleads for his life but fails to sway Nny, who kills him with the gun the clerk kept under the counter. Nny then turns the gun on himself, only to discover the gun had only one bullet. A brief burst of anger follows, which is cut short when Nny notices his favorite soft drink (Cherry Fiz-Wiz) in the cooler. He pays for his purchase and then leaves.

Issue Three

\"Cafe le prick\"

Feeling down, and with encouragement from Mister Eff, Johnny grabs his Walkman and heads out for a walk, with the hopes that a massacre at a nearby nightclub will cheer him up.

While walking past the Cafe le Prick on the way to the nightclub, Nny is insulted by a man who asks him for a cigarette. Even though he is listening to Ode to Joy on his headphones, Nny detects the insult, and so decides to bring his slaughter to the cafe instead of the nightclub. He thanks the insolent man before entering the cafe and beginning the most violent sequence in the series so far.

Johnny kills the patrons and employees of the Cafe le Prick en masse, humorously justifying each murder as he goes. About half are deserving of what happens to them, the other half are random victims. After killing most of those inside, Nny leaves the few survivors with a cryptic command to make the most of the time they have left. This turns out to be not much time at all, as Nny leaves a shrapnel bomb set for a few seconds.

\"A Bad Person\"

Squee is lost in the mall, his neglectful mother having wandered away from him. A man wearing a Scumby t-shirt appears and claims to know where the little boy's mother is. The man leads Squee to an alley behind the mall, and claims that Mrs. Casil will be meeting them there shortly. In the meantime, he suggest that Squee do him a “favor”. Johnny arrives just in time to save Squee from the pedophile, bashing the man's head with a pole. He then cuts the man's hand off with a knife, and opens the man's skull with a pair of hooks to show Squee that, although the man has a body just like other people, it is only a disguise to hide the vile, "true" human within. Then Johnny tells him to run because UFOs are coming, and disappears. Todd runs away in terror.

Untitled

Johnny tells an amusing and gory anecdote to a torture victim about another torture victim. To Nny's surprise, the listener doesn't find it remotely funny. The victim is later revealed to be Krik, who Nny kidnapped because Krik bullied him while drunk.

\"Johnny the You-Know-What\"

This comic follows two goths, Dillon and Tess, who Johnny sat in front of at a viewing of Kafka. Dillon, Tess' boyfriend, talked through the entire movie, ruining it for Johnny. Dillon is busy making fun of everything to hide his insecurities while Tess is one of the few decent people in Johnny's world. Johnny kidnaps the two for ruining the movie. It ends with Tess, the two both trapped in electric chairs, calling Dillon an "asshole."

\"Johnny the Suicidal Maniac\"

In this one, Johnny comes to the realization that he can't die or be caught for his murders due to some external manipulation. He doesn't know what it is, but it bothers him. This comic also reveals that Johnny no longer controls Psyco-doughboy and Mr. Eff who begin moving on their own, even though they're styrofoam. Johnny also brings up the idea that the only thing holding reality together is his awareness of it, which in issue five is proven to be true, as the universe disappears when Nny accidentally kills himself.

Untitled

Johnny gets a victim to test the contents of his fridge. The victim is bound in some sort of torture device in Johnny's basement and is forced to try salad and an ice lolly to check they're still good. His answers seem to be satisfactory to Johnny, who then sets the victim free. The victim wanders, very dazed from Johnny's house.

Issue Four

\"Descent\"

Johnny and Nail Bunny journey through the bowels of Johnny's house as they discuss the nature of his psychosis.

Untitled

Johnny and Tess have a conversation in Johnny's dungeon about Nny's desire for loss of all feelings and emotions, in which Johnny quotes from The Fly. Mr. Samsa first appears, and Johnny kills him, explaining his immortality. Nny then proceeds to torture Dillon through mild electrocution.

\"A * Call\"

Devi and Tonja sit in Devi's apartment. Tonja, frustrated at the fact that Devi will not leave the house for fear of running into Johnny convinces Devi that Nny probably knew she would call the police, and left town. She tells Devi to call Nny, assuring her that there will be no answer. A horrible series of noises follows Nny's answer, which is later explained when Nny shoots himself. Devi hangs up, and states that she "will be staying in tomorrow".

\"A Call?\"

Johnny has rigged up a robotic arm to shoot if he should speak into the phone or try to turn the arm off. Eff and Psycho taunt him and each other. Johnny stabs Psycho Doughboy and turns the arm off. The phone rings, Johnny answers it, and the robotic arm shoots Johnny in the face.

Issue Five

\"An Eventful Day\"

Krik stumbles into Tess and Dillon's dungeon. He tries to free them, but the wall monster breaks in and rips Dillon apart. Kirk manages to free Tess and they make a break for it with the wall monster in hot pursuit.

Untitled

During a brief reprieve, Krik describes to Tess how he ended up in Johnny's clutches. He says he was getting over the loss of a girl, who broke up with him because he was being abusive. Nny pulled up beside him in a car, and Krik began to harass him. The wall monster catches up with them, and Tess and Kirk flee into the nearest room to discover that it is full of restrained victims. The wall monster slaughters them all as the two attempt to escape.

\"Talking To Styrofoam\"

Tess and Krik run into the doughboys, who currently contrast in their moods. Mr. Eff is angry about Nny's accidental shooting while Psycho-Doughboy is enraptured (ironically, as Eff is more cheerful). The wall monster discovers them and consumes the doughboys as Tess and Kirk stand by in horror.

\"Anne Gwish\"

A stereotypical goth girl goes to a nightclub full of other goths identical to her while she boasts of her originality.

\"The Most Beloved Massive Headwound Recipient in Existence\"

Tess and Krik stumble across the barely-alive Johnny in the upstairs room of his house. Krik begins to stomp on Johnny's skull when suddenly the wall monster breaks through the floor where Johnny had been sprawled. Krik makes a run for the front door, but as he steps over the threshold the monster cuts him in half. Krik falls with the monster screaming into oblivion. Tess looks out to the void and disappears. All that is left is Johnny floating through space on a section of floorboards.

Issue Six

\"This Is Heaven\"

In Issue six, Johnny is sent to Heaven when he is shot in the head. He finds out that this is a mistake, and will only be there temporarily. Johnny meets God. God appears in the form of a fat lazy baby, who admits he has done nothing since creating the earth. Nny is then given a tour of heaven. He finds out that people in heaven have super powers, and can explode other peoples' heads. Nny can't resist the temptation and explodes several heads, triggering a huge altercation. As a consequence, he is sent to Hell.

Untitled

Johnny drills a hole in the back of a victim's head, then leaves to make them both sandwiches. (This has nothing to do with the storyline. Jhonen Vasquez included the comic because he thought that it was "adorable.")

Untitled

Johnny meets Señor Diablo. The devil tells him the true nature of his situation. Nny then gets a tour of hell. The tour is given by a man whom Nny killed. The man starts ranting at him, and Nny, annoyed, kicks him out of the car they are in. He crashes into a store and steals some clothes. He then finds out that the people of Hell are just as conceited and snobby as the people on earth, but on earth, there were "nice people mixed in with the social maggots". Furthermore, Hell's torments are entirely self-inflicted via the damned's petty obsessions. The Devil then shows up in a cheerleader form, attempting to frighten Nny. The Devil then offers to tell Nny about his mysterious past, which Nny can barely remember. Nny asks if he can keep the clothes he stole. The devil says no, and asks him again if he wants to know about his past. Nny obsesses over the clothes, and before the devil can respond, Nny is resurrected, much to the disgust of the devil.

\"JTRM (The \"R\" is for Resurrected!!)\"

Johnny awakes to find himself alive once more. He discovers that he is alone ("No voices. No doughboys. NOTHING. It's just me."), with the exception of a talking Bub's Burger Boy. He discovers he is still crazy, but is now in control. Johnny decides to celebrate by watching TV with a tin of Pringles and a Brain-Freezy.

Untitled

Johnny is inside the 24/7 at the counter to buy a Frooty Pop. When a robber comes into the store and shoots the cashier for resisting when asked to hand over the money, Johnny contemplates still paying for the popsicle ("Maybe he had a family. They might need it."). Ten minutes later, Johnny decides that he hates "moral dillemas" and is seen standing by the dead man with several Frooty Pops (six to be exact).

Issue Seven

\"An Admirer of Sorts\"

In issue 7, we find Nny back at home, brooding. Someone pays him a visit, and Nny is not at all amused to find that someone to be his "biggest fan," a delusional copycat murderer of a teenager named Jimmy.

Nny listens patiently to the boy's story, his rage building. This erupts after Jimmy makes comments about some of his own victims, one of whom he raped, a killing Tess accused Johnny of earlier on (which he furiously denied). Nny is disgusted by the loss of emotional control and the concept of coming into such contact with a human, provoking Nny into what could be considered the most violent killing of the series. Jimmy is vivisected in the most brutal way possible, and Nny keeps up a running rant (as per usual). This rant concerns artists who are faced with their greatest admirers' poor fascimiles of their work. One comment about the rant is that Nny acknowledges that Jimmy's work has more in common with his own than he'd like to think. He ends this segment, smashing Jimmy in the torso with a mallet, with the statement "I don't like myself much."

(A morbidly amusing note at the bottom of the last page informs us that Vasquez finished that story arc on Christmas.)

Untitled

Johnny makes a disastrous attempt to reconcile things with his would-be love interest, Devi, in the form of a recorded message. Devi does not take too kindly to this. At all. Quote on quote Devi replies "Hey! Shut up! Shut that thing off! Pick up the phone, Nny, you little shit!!"

Untitled

Nny argues with the Burger boy, Reverend Meat, who believes that Nny should give up his quest for desensitization and give in to his emotions. However, the disembodied voice of Nailbunny tells Johnny to resist, which Nny does, leaving in outrage. Meat then says that everyone is a slave to something.

Untitled

Nny writes on a paper, and impales the paper on an arrow. Driving to a spot, he shoots the bow-and arrow at a homeless man, killing him. The paper is revealed to say: KICK ME.

\"Good Luck, Squee!\"

In the end, we see that Nny is paying Squee one last visit. He informs the boy that he will be leaving for a "vacation" to sort things out. Nny's ambition now is to erase all forms of emotion he possesses and become cold like an insect. He warns Squee to be careful, as Nny won't be there to help him out for awhile.

Squee's father interrupts and sustains several severe injuries, leaving Squee more scared than ever. Nny departs soon after, leaving Squee with his nightmares.

Untitled

The comic ends on a strangely optimistic note, with Nny writing in his diary that "I can't say I'm very pleased with where my life is just now... but I can't help but look forward to where it's going."

Other storylines

The series contains many strips that, for the most part, have nothing to do with the main storyline. Most of these strips are what Vasquez calls “meanwhiles,” the titles of which begin with "Meanwhile…" Some of the other strips follow a public service announcement motif, while others share the title "True Tales of Human Drama". There is also a comic-within-a-comic in the form of "Happy Noodle Boy."

Anne Gwish

Anne Gwish is a goth woman that has her own strip in the later part of the series. Her name is a pun on the word "anguish." Her storyline is completely unrelated to Johnny’s, though she lives in the same fictional universe. The strips featuring her are largely a satire on goth culture's tendencies towards pretension. Generally, this consists of her either attempting to be different, while mimicking the goth subculture, or bitching about how people make fun of her, while making fun of others, or those very people.

In most of her strips, you can find puns and parodies on gothic subculture. Like "Johnny the Hamicidal Maniac" (with Johnny as a pig), "The Shmoe" (a rather obvious parody of "The Crow", who proclaims "I stole this look from KISS!") and "The Dirtman" (a 'The Sandman' joke).

Happy Noodle Boy

Johnny is also the creator of a comic strip called Happy Noodle Boy.

Happy Noodle Boy is a stick figure appearing in a comic drawn by Johnny and read mainly by "the homeless insane". Every issue has (at least) one single-page insert of the Happy Noodle Boy comic itself, detailing the often completely nonsensical adventures. Happy Noodle Boy spends much of his time standing on a wooden box and yelling nonsense at hapless pedestrians, often provoking his own death.

He appears in the backgrounds of many of the strips of the main storyline, usually in crowd scenes, and pictures of him appear frequently in Squee's room. Johnny seems to be in the habit of leaving his drawings lying around.

It is believed that Happy Noodle Boy's name is a reference to Johnny's extraordinarily thin figure. In one particular comic, Johnny says that when he was young, other kids taunted him for this, calling him "Noodle Boy."

Wobbly-Headed Bob

Receiving his own one page comic in each book of the series, Wobbly-Headed Bob is a bipedal creature with an oversized head who roams the land spreading his depressing views on life. The outcome is often either utter despair in those who listen to him or Wobbly-Headed Bob's becoming filled with disgust at what he sees as their own stupidity.

Meanwhiles

The Meanwhiles are strips unrelated to—but in the same fictional universe as—the main storyline. They are usually only a few pages long. They begin with the title, "Meanwhile..." Vasquez himself makes an appearance in several of the Meanwhiles.

While absent in the JTHM: Director's Cut trade paperback (which collected issues one through seven), the Meanwhile strips were later compiled in Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors.

True Tales of Human Drama

These are silly little stories the author created presumably because he wanted to do something different. Most often in these stories things happen that make little or no sense, such as a baby exploding or a man expelling something out of his nose so evil that a priest commands him to jump off a building.

Public Service Announcement

In a few issues there is a "Public Service Announcement," often with exaggerated messages involving events such as a 15-year-old girl taking a bite out of her baby and a drug addict's horrendous puking which results in his left eyeball exploding (The moral at the end of this particular "Public Service Announcement" is "Kids, drugs won't help things. They'll only turn you into a hideous little freak troll-baby with exploding eyeballs."

Commentary on the Goth subculture

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac has become so particularly popular among participants of the status quo and subcultures (most prominently the Goth movement) that it frequently satirizes out of a good-humored appetite for self-parody; it has become a call for self-improvement to those who latch on to said subcultures—while missing the point—or model themselves stereotypically to the point that they no longer stand for "anything substantial".

It has been suggested by fans that, whether Vasquez intended it or not, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is a parody of the "goth revenge fantasy".

References

The film Bite Me, Fanboy features an entire scene dedicated to JTHM and Jhonen's fans.

Invader Zim, a Nickelodeon cartoon created by Vasquez, often features subtle references to JTHM.

The Simpsons television series made a reference to JTHM in "Thank God it's Doomsday" where Homer Simpson was told that, while in heaven, all of his needs or wants would be fulfilled with simply a thought. He followed this by wishing for his tour guide's head to explode.

Northern Va Punk Rock band Booboise referenced JTHM in a song of the same name

External links

• [Jhonen Vasquez's official website]

 

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