JTHM: Director's Cut

Jhonen Vasquez

Does anyone remember little Johnny any more? Vasquez gained much acclaim (and respect) for being the brain behind the cartoon Invader Zim in the late nineties, but before Zim, there were Johnny, Squee, and the rest of the cast of this thoroughly twisted comic.

Covering the first seven issues of the comic book and a good deal of unreleased material, JTHM: Director's Cut both is and is not, in ways, an actual graphic novel. There is a full story arc to be found here, but the way we get from point A to point B is extremely disjointed. Which actually fits in quite well with the art, which is also exceptionally disjointed, and Johnny's speeches, which are... you get the idea. And thus the book's major flaw-- Johnny and his compatriots on his journey through life are not your typical comic book inhabitants. In many ways, that's a wonderful thing. (Who would read Archie and Veronica, Natural Born Killers?) But Johnny has a tendency to spend large numbers of panels at once going off on long diversions that, given the font of the lettering, tend to be hard to read. Conundrum: there's really nothing one can change, because Vasquez' visual concepts are so well married to the material that I have to think a change to a more readable (or larger) font wouldn't have given the work the same ambiance the work presently has.

Still, speechifying aside (and let me rush to add that it's not annoying political speechifying, it's Johnny turning his examination inward), this is great stuff. Extremely inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18, so buy as many copies as you can and give them to all your nieces, nephews, neighbors, and all the rest of the little tots who can greatly benefit.