diamond comics interview
diamond comics: "Cobwebs all over me! My face...my faaaaaaace!" The high-pitched screams from the back of my throat sent employees scrambling from their cubicles as I completed my interview with writer/artist/vampire Jhonen Vasquez. That gloomy and wet Friday afternoon, I learned of the cruel mental instability which has made Mr. Vasquez exorcise his soul in his latest full-color creation, the uplifting I Feel Sick one-shot. It was me, a phone call, silence, and focus. Jhonen spoke, laughed, cried, and threatened. I thanked him for his genius, and give to you, dear readers, this following diary of a madman not meant for public television. Diamond: This is Slave Labor�s first color book. Why did you decide to break the mold? Jhonen: I wanted to take this book into [creepy voice] the color dimension. It�s just another thing I haven�t really done. The only time I ever got to mess with color was with the paintings I did for the Johnny covers. But people really liked it. So I got my friend Rikki Simons. He just does a kick-ass job of coloring my stuff. He colored a magazine cover I did for Ben Is Dead. The effect was beautiful. There�s a good murkiness to it. Anything to push away from the whole Johnny world...although Johnny�s still out there somewhere. Diamond: Is I Feel Sick�s Devi some new experimental heroine? Some new weird science? Jhonen: No. But she keeps herself sane by working incessantly. There�s a horrible history of friendships going sour on her, so she just wants to paint and have people leave her alone. Unfortunately, that doesn�t happen. So, when she looks at someone, she mutates them. It�s her reality. It makes the book a lot more fun to draw. Diamond: How did you approach working on I Feel Sick? What did you want to accomplish? Jhonen: My only real super power when it came to doing this book was thinking, "Hey, I�m not doing this to make anybody happy." It�s such a personal thing, y�know? I�ve never thought, "I hope nobody takes this, runs with it, and kills." I guess that�s why I�m so awful at animation: you have to pitch your idea and say why the audience will like it. Me, I just say, "I don�t know. Just gimme the money." In any case, the characters in my new book are those who have lost it. Like Johnny. You just want to hug him. Diamond: Name your favorite movies. Jhonen: Heh. Usually, I�m a bigger fan of the monster that was created by people. Hmm. Frankenstein. Classic. But I�m not huge into horror, really. I mean, I can enjoy a good gore fest. I can sit there and go, "Heh. Lookit. Heads flying." But for the most part, I just like a good movie. But I did love John Carpenter�s The Thing. Let�s see. Oh. Zombies. Diamond: You�ve started a movement with Johnny The Homicidal Maniac. Lenore, Lortnoc, Goth Cookie have similar "dark" art. Comments? Jhonen: Well, some of these books I�ve heard of, but haven�t seen yet. But, y�know, I think there were people doing this same sort of thing before I was alive, or at least before my book came out. I don�t think of myself as paving the way. It�s just now a little bit more accepted, I guess. It�s kind of disturbing, though. The whole spooky biz is a bit overcrowded. Don�t know if that�s good. [Laughs] My audience goes out and murders people. My audience, the spooky people, oh man, they probably live in dumpsters behind restaurants. Diamond: What art classes did you take? How did you develop your unique artistic style? Jhonen: I didn�t go to any follow-up school for developing my ninja powers. Heh, it was a result of just sitting around all day. I retained the bad habits, and some that I actually thought were cool and decent. But I was horrible in classes where people were telling me "This is how you draw." Not so much on a technical level, but just in the whole human interaction thing. Uh...I just remember...teachers not ever really liking me. It�s my fault, since I shouldn�t have been there if I had that attitude. But I could never think of drawing as work. Diamond: Any plans for more road trips? Any signings scheduled? Jhonen: Hey, the first trip was fun. Horrible when I was going through it. But in retrospect, it was fun: more people than I�ve met my entire life. I remember having some kind of spasm. I definitely want to do it again, though, but not until I have a steady series of new books out. Not sure what kind of new series I would do. I don�t know. My day job is, well, the old Pitfall Atari game. Fortunately, the vines are close enough together so that I�m not going, "Oh, my God. It�s Ramen noodles time again." Diamond: Word is you�ve been doing stuff for Nickolodean. Details are sketchy. Why the secrecy? Jhonen: Shame. I don�t want anyone to know. Seriously, though, around issue #6 or #7 of Johnny, I was contacted by people who wanted to know if I had a plan for a project. Initially I said "No," because I wanted to put my attention towards my current load of crap. Then halfway through Squee one night (I was drunk), Nickolodean called, and I said "Yeah, okay." Now people can watch a tiny little bit of something I created for TV. And I�m sure I�ll go, "I guess it wasn�t such a waste of time after all." But then I�ll go into a room and just cry it all out. Contrary to what people have said, this thing is just in the pilot phase. It�s not a serious thing happening right now. But the reaction has been positive. Diamond: Any plans for more Johnny stories? Jhonen: I would love to do another series again, but that�s a huge investment. I had another series in my head when I was working on the first one. I had him coming back. Then when I moved to L.A., the fuel for new ideas just soared through the roof. I definitely plan on getting back to Johnny again. I mean, he�s my guy. I stopped him because I still liked him. I can�t fathom how anyone could stick with a series for so long and not just want to kill themselves to keep it from going on forever.
