Participants
Pardon the Interruption: Interjections,
Commentary, and Secret Messages in Jhonen Vasquez’s Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Squee
Sean Fenty
University of Florida
sfenty@english.ufl.edu
“Put my name into any websearch and you’ll come up with fan sites…You’re not going to see me in [The] Comics Journal” – Jhonen Vasquez
“Even by writing this review, I think any reputation of being an intellectual that I possibly could have ever made has just perished.” –Amazon reviewer of JTHM
The dearth of critical analysis of the work of Jhonen Vasquez, one of the more successful alternative comic creators of the last decade, warrants correction and examination. This paper attempts to suggest some ways we may fruitfully explore Vasquez’s work, specifically his two major graphic novels-- Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Squee. My main focus will be on how he simultaneously constructs his stories and interrupts them with various interjections, “director” commentaries, and hidden messages. Many of these textual tidbits, squeezed into the corners of panels, filling in borders, appearing on shirts, bags and billboards, or just floating in the limited white space of the ink filled pages, are noticeable distractions from the story. Vasquez seems to revel in interrupting the flow of the story and calling attention to the artificial nature of his creation. While this would become exasperating in more serious works, in Vasquez’s absurdly violent dark comedies, it adds another layer of derisiveness, and more opportunities for humor that would not fit within a normal diegetic space. This extra-narrative textual noise makes it nearly impossible for readers to fully take the imaginative leap into the panels and fall into the diegetic world. It also makes it equally difficult to take any of the outrageous acts of violence in these comics seriously, and allows even relatively squeamish readers to laugh at them without guilt. In looking at these aspects of Vasquez’s work, I hope to also illustrate how we as comic scholars can critically approach such works without the intellectual guilt that seemingly continues to limit the critical attention we pay to comics that neither have mainstream appeal and influence nor serious or profound subject matters, but nonetheless often warrant critical discussion.
