Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (often abbreviated JtHM) is the first comic book by Jhonen Vasquez. The series tells the story of a young man named Johnny “Nny” C. as he explores the psychological and possibly supernatural forces which compel him to commit a string of murders with which he always seems to get away. JtHM began as a comic strip in the 1990s, then ran under alternative comics publisher Slave Labor Graphics as a limited series of seven issues, later collected in the trade paperback Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut. The series produced three spin-offs: Squee!, I Feel Sick and Fillerbunny. Creation Vasquez started drawing in kindergarten. He attended Mount Pleasant High School, where he took a part in a contest to design the cardinal as a school's mascot. Vasquez submitted an entry, but the judges rejected it. On the back of a preliminary drawing for the contest, he drew his first sketch of the character he would later name Johnny C. Vasquez's high school's student newspaper published a number of comic strips titled Johnny the Little Homicidal Maniac. Vasquez says the character originated as a personal avatar who could carry out his own revenge fantasies. Comic book artist and filmmaker Rob Schrab makes the same observation. However, Vasquez later distanced himself from the character, saying that Johnny should not be mistaken for an author surrogate. Vasquez also created Happy Noodle Boy while attending Mount Pleasant as a way to stop his girlfriend from asking him to draw comics for her. In the early 1990s, Carpe Noctem, a magazine about the goth subculture, published several one-page strips featuring Johnny, now called Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Though he never planned to create comic books, Vasquez submitted samples of his artwork to alternative comics publisher Slave Labor Graphics. Between August 1995 and January 1997, the publisher released a series of seven full-length issues based on the character. Vasquez describes the production process for Johnny as a "mess" and a "spew". As Vasquez worked on the comic, he prepared less and less, foregoing outlines and sketches and writing dialogue as he inked. Vasquez wishes that he had taken more time to plan the series, and feels that the quality of the dialogue suffered from his haphazard approach. A photograph of one of Vasquez's friends, Leah England, serves as the middle of a portrait collection on the cover of the second issue of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.