Johnny The Homicidal Maniac : Director's Cut

Rating:
Summary: I rarely like bloody comics BUT I LOVED THIS
Review: Anyone who were to flip through a copy of this book would never see beyond the blood and gore. The eerie theme to Jhonny's experiences leads to a defining moment in the afterlife. The philosophy of this book is about as strong as the sixth sense. As i said, im not a fan of pointless violence material but this isnt pointless! The book is also horrifyingly funny. Happy noodle boy gets old after a while but will keep you laughing. Wobbly headed bob lets us witness an out of proportion character's woeful view on life. Possibly the best part of this book is the sketch area. Everybody likes to see how stories and characters formed. Its just really neat for some reason. I would highly reccomend this book to anyone who can look beyond the ink.

Rating:
Summary: ANYONE WHO LIKES THIS WILL BURN IN HADES... Care to join me?
Review: Jhonen Vasquez... delivering morbid, insane plots and twists while keeping a good form of sheer logic... I only own the 1st 3 comics, but can't find them here... only the DC JTHM version... Man, wish I could get more...

Rating:
Summary: Finally, an American publication with a sense of satire
Review: Jhonen Vasquez's vastly misunderstood comic series is one of the funniest, slyest, most stylish and thought-provoking things I've ever come across. His deliciously satirical voice is refreshing, in a world where so much media is re-hashed and mass-produced.

The artwork in JTHM is amazing - just ink and white, no value, and yet very much alive; the expressiveness of his characters in face and form is wonderfully humerous, capturing the spirit of his intelligent, tongue-in-cheek storyline. The result is a seamless black-comedy, where nothing, least of all Johnny himself, is above rebuke. The tiny details throughout the book are excruciatingly clever - hidden messages in the margins, product names, backgrounds, Johnny's monologues as he tortures his victims, etc.; all very funny and imaginative. Somehow, a heaven populated with flying bunnies just seems right, as does everything about this book.

Highly recommended, if you have a sense of sarcasm. Otherwise, you'd be better off leaving it on the shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Happy Noodle Boy Forever
Review: With its sickening depictions of torture and murder, I consider the Johnny The Homicidal Maniac comic book series to be one of the most shocking and disturbing perversions of illustrated literature I've ever gazed upon. Needless to say, I enjoyed it immensely. I also found this tome to be laugh-out loud funny, amazingly well written, and, most surprisingly, thought-provoking.

I know you're wondering: "You find a comic about killing and death to be funny?"

Well, yeah, I do. The writer/artist, Jhonen Vasquez, has the uncanny talent of making the most horrendous and disturbing moments in his books into the funniest ones as well. I've had the best yuks out of the sickest parts of the JTHM comics.

The artwork for JTHM: TDC is "underground" style- relatively simple, cartoonish, and abstract. Vasquez even pokes fun at his own work in sidebar commentaries throughout the book, letting you know that he doesn't care if it's not up to par with the kind of art you'd see in super-hero type comics, and if you don't like it, go somewhere else for entertainment. So there.

The dialogue between certain characters usually reflects great intelligence and even highly rational thinking. Paradoxically, the most rational being within this underground classic is Johnny, the title character. He tortures and kills people, usually as vengeance for their belittling of him and giving him a hard time. But sometimes he does it just because he feels like killing. He strives to become machine-like, to not be bound by the emotions, desires, and cravings that is human nature. Ironically, it's that same human nature gone horribly wrong within 'Nny' that drives him to commit heinous acts of rage-induced violence. It's also this nature in others that ridicule him for his differences, which drives him over the edge.

Also introduced in this book is Squee, a little boy who Nny pays occasional visits to... to 'help him out' with his problems. Squee would eventually get his own comic mini-series, one that I consider even better than the comic that it was 'spun off' from.

But the initial reason I started reading JTHM wasn't due to Johnny's disturbing forays into a world of pain and death. It was the strange and profane musings of Happy Noodle Boy, a unique individual who pops up in short one-page "adventures" every so often in the trade paperback. "Written and illustrated" by the Homicidal Maniac himself (yes, the title character is scripting and drawing his own comics within a comic book), the Happy Noodle Boy is a stick-figure living in a flat, poorly-rendered world. He spends most of his time at the city park, standing on a soap box, and loudly expounding unusual phrases and obscenity-laden utterings of apparent nonsense at shocked passers-by and crowds of the curious. I find Noodly's many obnoxious and loud verbal taunts to be some of the most entertaining groups of words to be cobbled into sentences. Here's a few of my favorite Noodle-isms (well, the cleaner ones anyway):

"Kneel before my power! Or I will unleash my army of surly crack babies!" "Look! David Hasselhoff CAN fly!" "My hands! I can't get them off my wrists! Oh, God!" "Children! Consume your siblings!"

Only the twisted genius of a gifted madman could come up with these kinds of sayings. And there are many more where those came from.

My only gripe: there is some material missing from the trade paperback that was originally in the seven comic book issues that this volume collects. The 'Meanwhile...'s, eight-page side-stories in the middle of each issue, were not included in JTHM:TDC. It's the first time I ever saw a 'Director's Cut' that took material OUT, rather than put it back in. Fortunately, it all worked out in the end- the 'Meanwhile...'s were restored in the SQUEE! trade paperback, which I highly recommend, even more than The Director's Cut...

Rating:
Summary: Sick and Twisted Fun
Review: Johnny, or Nny, as he prefers to be called is an icon of our time. This book goes from splatterpunk to metaphysics to cosmic horror while remaining funny. Don't forget to check out Squee's unspeakble book of horror, also by Jhonen.

Rating:
Summary: Dark, satyrical and undeniably humorous.
Review: Without a doubt, Director's Cut is one of the funniest, most demented comics I have ever read. Johnny is wonderfully rendered as a tool of his ever increasing insanity and "other" forces, in a hopeless attempt just to be left to live his own life without being harassed by the world. The content of this book deserves five stars, unfortunately, the construction suffers. After reading the book once, the spine had split and pages began pouring out. If you do purchase this book (I highly recommend you do so) be extremely careful in turning the pages, as they will come out very easily.

Rating:
Summary: Woo, Buddy!
Review: you will NOT regret getting this book. I swear, it is wonderful! Johnny is the best series i have ever picked up. lovely, this is. E-mail me for more info, but i know that you'll like this. Theres so much more to it then you get from just reading it. Also, It is the funnyest thing i've seen (and i'm a die-hard fan of monty python) *my email adress is [e-mail] Squee is also VERY good.

Rating:
Summary: Feed your demons a tasty little morsel of twisted goodness..
Review: How can you describe genius in it's most dark and disturbed form? Johnny is a madman on a quest for answers and revenge. He sees through the layer of conformity on even those who would consider themselves the least conformist. On the farthest reach of the dark side of humor Johnny feeds the demons in ourselves who without sustenance might very well unleash themselves as Johnny does. Do not follow his example mind you but do take note of the true meaning under the blood and senseless violence.And remember... "The passions that drive us must be the ones we respect and admire. to feel contempt for one's own motivations is a vulgar thing." --Jhonen Vasquez

Rating:
Summary: JtHM is the best comic ever!
Review: this comic was designed for people who wanna kill the archie gang. it has humour, intelligence, killing, blood, gore, and a cute little boy who lives next door. johnny is an intensly smart individual, who has soliloques at some points, yet enjoys killing people who are superficial.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST COMIC EVER.
Review: This book was so amazing. Hilarious, sad, cute (heh, yeah, even cute!), nose-wrinkling gross. The first time I read this, I laughed the whole time. Yep, it was that good. The best thing is is that this book is a solid interpretation of our time; Johnny is a manifestation of what we would all like to do, but know can never happen. An excellent metaphor for the demon within us all. Everybody should read this book, in spite of the fact that it may scar you for life (but in a good way, as I paraphrase Johnny, "Entertainment is merely that, not a guidebook for damning yourself."); it raises some real issues about what is acceptable in today's society and in the hearts of mankind. Also, Johnny's so CUTE! Everybody thinks I'm insane for thinking this, but it's so true! He's not a one-sided killer; he thinks about what he does, and is tortured by it. JtHM is a wonderful comic, read it now... it could change your life.