Jake Thomas's Reviews > Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut

JTHM will always have a special place in the blackest, nastiest corner of my heart due to its being the first official comic book/graphic novel I ever read. What I love about the book is that it's not the gore that scares me, it's the thought behind it. Johnny's existential crises come hard, fast and psychotic, as well as at the cost of many many lives. The book works because it's not simply a splatter book with the killer we all know and love. Johnny is a complex, thoughtful, aware and self-loathing character and some of the ideas and images in the book, from the blood wall to the trip to the afterlife to the snicker-worthily named Die-Ary entries give a strange depth of feeling in the book. There's something primal and otherworldly at work here, and although you can feel touches of Johnen's inspirations here and there, this is a personal work unlike just about anything else out there.

The art is fantastic as well, fitting ever-so-perfectly into the skewed perspective of the protagonist. Have there been more horrifying creatures fashioned into ink and paper funnies than The Doughboys? A stranger imagining of Heaven? A portrayal of God that is at equal lengths horrifying, hilarious and enigmatic?

And it's funny. Oh lord, is it funny. Heaven help me, Happy Noodle Boy will never cease to make me laugh. Probably because I, like the rest of the Johnniacs, am more than a little screwy.