Alternative. The adjective originally applied to any of lifestyle that didn't quite match that of the average person: punks, goths, comic-reading recluses. Soon the term was applied to every medium - most notably, music.
Today, alternative lifestyles have taken on a life of their own, and the growing popularity of punk and gothic lifestyles has made them something less than alternative. Alternative music is now mainstream music, the label given to most forms of modern rock and even some modern pop. The genre remains in its original, low-key, independent form in but one medium: the comic book.
While mainstream comics deal with superheroes and mysteries, alternative comics tend to be caustic and abrasive social commentaries woven into a complex network of contemporary humor and vulgarity. Hiding somewhere in the shadows of such graphic publishing powerhouses as Marvel and DC, dozens of independent comics publishers host nearly a hundred artists and titles, each with his or her own underground fan network.
Slave Labor Graphics is one such publisher, and its most popular artist, Jhonen Vasquez, is at the forefront of the indie comic world - his career having skyrocketed in the past five years with such titles as Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee!, I Feel Sick, and several one-shot (or single-copy) books, including Fillerbunny and The Bad Art Collection.
The tall, slim, "mostly Mexican" Californian has made several appearances at comic conventions and held signings at various stores, but maintains a low profile in the midst of his sudden popularity. Vasquez says that his work is "something humorous and yet at the same time [readers] recognize it as something they carry inside themselves." Johnny, starring a recluse with a full torture chamber under his ramshackle house, is still his most famous strip, including large amounts of gore-riddled, violent action and, as Vasquez describes it, "vicious self-mockery [and] humor, more than anything else. The book plays off of pretension, sort of a mockery of it."
Besides the murderous, vengeful social-outcast Johnny (Nny for short), Vasquez's characters include Todd Casil, known as Squee, a young boy of "perhaps five." Squee is almost totally ignored by his parents, mocked by his peers (except for the young son of Satan, Pepito, who attends his elementary school), and generally thrust into the worst possible scenarios in life, from abduction by aliens to finding Johnny in his bathroom, covered in blood and looking for the Bactine.
Vasquez admits that he was often the object of ridicule in his youth, remarking that, "all you have to do is leave the house and people will make fun of you. People are so isolated. It's sad, but they'll make fun of anyone that's different from them." Johnny's mass killing of "the testosterone-filled gossipy in-crowds" is "the extreme form of contempt for the human nature that allows such things to happen."
In a way, the humor in Vasquez's books is based off of all the things that he finds repulsive in life. Toilet humor is a common theme, including a scene where Devi, the shut-in artist heroine of I Feel Sick, is stuck on a blind date with a man who cannot stop defecating in his pants. "I hate being human. It's the whole toilet thing.... Being an organic organism [is] redundant. Some [humans] might as well be on leashes or thrown in cages. They f-ck, kill, eat, sh-t, fart, belch, [and] if something's in their way, they beat it up." Again, the contempt for the less impressive side of human nature is as prevalent in his commentary as it is in his work.
Besides Johnny, representing anger with mainstream society, Devi, the reclusive artist sick of the world, Squee, a manifestation of innocence and understanding being beaten down by life, and Fillerbunny, a representation of pain, Vasquez's books include many minor characters. Wobbleyheaded Bob is a super-genius who somehow always manages to get himself mutilated, who Vasquez claims is "my arrogant side." Happy Noodle Boy, a nonsensical stick figure, is actually a diversion created for a friend. "She always wanted me to do new comics for her, always. I made this awful, annoying, badly-drawn character, to give her. It just took off, and I liked it, so it stuck."
Vasquez's newest creation, a co-project with fellow alternative comics artist and Lenore creator Roman Dirge, is Invader Zim, a cartoon show about a little alien living with a child on earth. Zim, hated by his superiors, is sent on a "secret mission" to a "secret planet" with a defective robot aid scrounged from the trash. Six months later, Zim finds himself on Earth, thinks he has reached his destination, and decides to blend in and learn about the humans so he can bring ultimate doom to their planet. Dib, a young boy, and one of Zim's classmates from "skool," befriends Zim, hoping to get rich and prove the existence of aliens by making an alien autopsy video.
The TV series, released by Nickelodeon, seems far more suited to MTV (just like its animation team's previous show, Ren and Stimpy). It stars the voice talents of Andy Berman, Richard Steven Horvitz, and Vasquez's colorist for I Feel Sick, Rosearik Rikki Simons. "This Nickelodeon thing scares me," says editor David James, "I think Jhonen having access to young minds in such large numbers is one of the seven signs of the apocalypse."
Many fans say that Vasquez's work as well as his turn to the animation medium is reminiscent of Tim Burton's career, but Vasquez doesn't agree. I don't aspire to be Tim Burton, he told the Daily, "though I love his style and his ideas for stories."
When asked about the frequent comparisons made between him and Burton, Vasquez said that everyone compares similar styles, and that Burton's early work is often compared to that of Edward Gorey, an early twentieth century cartoonist who created what Vasquez calls, "really creepy children's fairy tales," including illustrations for T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (the basis for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats) and The Gashly Crumb Tinies.
On a lighter side, with all his projects, does Vasquez have time for hobbies? "I collect Pillsbury Doughboys. I've always been into them. I've got two store display ones - I just asked nicely in the stores when display time was up, then took them back and painted them. I just like the design. When I work, I just sit in my room with my doughboys surrounding me, listening to music. And I like driving around, after finishing a page at three in the morning. Through the roads, listening to loud music under clear night skies."
