Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
The cover of the first issue
Publication information
Publisher	Slave Labor Graphics
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Limited series
Genre	Black comedy
Publication date(s)	August 1995 – January 1997
No. of issues	7
Main character(s)	Johnny C., Squee
Creative team
Created by	Jhonen Vasquez
Written by	Jhonen Vasquez
Artist(s)	Jhonen Vasquez
Editor(s)	Jennifer de Guzman

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 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 two spin-offs: Squee! and I Feel Sick.

Jhonen Vasquez started drawing in kindergarten. Later, he attended Mount Pleasant High School, where, taking part in a contest to design a new look for his school's mascot, the Cardinal, Vasquez submitted an entry that the judges rejected. 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. 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.