Whoo...

My most successful work to date...an 10+ year old Amazon review. FFS...

Review of JTHM by Jhonen Vasquez

"Black has never been so dark"
- 25 Aug. 2004

Where can you start with this? Jhonen Vasquez has proven himself to be a formidable presence in the alternative comic market and with good reason. His work is both terrifying and hilarious...trust me, it's possible.

The surreal, dark and exceptionally twisted Johnny inhabits a small world in his mind that has been skewed by something in his past - what it is we don't know and as insensitive people, we don't much care. Because of this Johnny has developed a nasty habit of torturing and killing the majority of people he comes into contact with - people who kick his chair at the cinema, people who 'gotta have a smoke' and any person that could actually love him. Scratch that; it's people in general. 

The only person exempt from his onslaught is Squee, his highly-traumatised-only-weighs-as-much-as-a-cheeseburger-neighbour, who despite Johnny's efforts to watch out for him always ends up psychologically scarring him. Tragic, no? Not only that, but Johnny is often suicidal, but even this is funny - 'It's such a beautiful night...I think I'll kill myself.' or when he attempts to commit suicide, fails and then is rescued from his depression by a dioreahha [sic] advert on TV.

The artwork is a dense geometrical black and white labyrinth, with the panels not in conventional rows and columns, all the more adding to the insanity that is Johnny. Also, what makes the artwork so alluring is the way the panels are drawn in the style of camera angles as opposed to traditional forward-facing comic characters.

The stories are a mixture of horrific levels of violence and Johnny's insightful soliloquies where he tries to justify his actions, the main one being that there is a 'thing' behind his wall and if he doesn't keep the wall wet with blood the 'thing' will get out and do more damage than Johnny ever could.

Whilst this could be a recipe for a bad blood-soaked comic that's only good for lighting the fire, Vasquez has an explosive sense of humour that makes you burst out laughing even when disembowelling his one and only fan. Vasquez has created a complete universe of death, torture and Frooty Pops that is perfect to curl up with on a Sunday afternoon. No, really, it'll make you smile!

18 of 19 people found this review helpful

Going Lowbrow

Literary novels with themes of family, relationships, mortality, personal exploration, and quiet emotions get reviewed in The Guardian and are included on university reading lists. Odd speculative fiction sort of goes underground and doesn't often appear in WHSmiths, but is very fun to write.

I write this based on feedback I had from someone about a short story I knocked out and also the first six thousand words of my current novel in progress:

"[...]when I was reading your short story with the lovely/grosse [sic] worm and time in hospital that was tonally [sic] like reading a literary book. The introduction of humour / fantasy in that world would have been brilliant, but it would have still remained a literary book because it was so well grounded whereas this one [current work in progress] feels like a comic fantasy novel which I reckon is a shame if you can do the other one."

I actually like the idea of a comic fantasy novel. I like silliness juxtaposed against horror a.k.a. tragicomedy. I like comic books. I like things like Kick Ass, JTHM, Ghost World, The League of Gentlemen, Psychoville, and Jasper Fforde's books. Is that 'low' fiction compared to literary fiction?

So, go with gut or go with highbrow?