Just Fantastic: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director’s Cut

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is a comedy/serial killer book that explores morality and destiny. Its wild, almost incomprehensible drawings and plots are deranged. They twist back on each other in a terrifying gore-fest that ultimately left me feeling like I just read a piece of history. But it’s also funny and self-satirizing.

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director’s Cut ^[1] was published in 1997. It was written by Jhonen Vasquez ^[2], who also wrote Squee ^[3] and I Feel Sick ^[4] and created the cartoon Invader Zim ^[5].

This book is dark — very dark — and twisted: the type of thing parents send their teenagers to counselors for reading. Overall the work is genius, but there were some ups and downs. For example, in section four I was bored, and in section six the humor was so captivating I had to stop every few frames to crack-up laughing.

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is full of great concepts and ideas. While those ideas generally feel underdeveloped and underutilized, they are amusing; other artists have been cannibalizing Johnny the Homicidal Maniac ever since.

Anyone who knows Donnie Darko ^[6] will recognize the influence Nail Bunny, a Johnny character, had on the film. Plenty of moments and characters in the book gave me a similar reaction.

I honestly don’t have much else to say. A long and lurid plot description wouldn’t do this piece justice. It’s something you have read to fully comprehend; by the end of the first section you’ll love it or hate it. I love Johnny the Homicidal Maniac for all it offers and all it has inspired and will inspire.  

Just Fantastic appears the second and fourth Wednesday every month.