I want to touch the parts of you that feel like a wound. Stick my fingers into the fleshy underbelly and cradle the things that hurt you the most. You rolled in like a thunderstorm: teeth bared, wild animal. But under the veil of violence is a glimmer of something so gentle...like a flickering candle that I cup my fingers around--holding onto your tiny light--until the flame inevitably rages and consumes me. I want to see you in your rawest form--show me the color of your insides. . .

".....What is this about?"

This is a comic series by the author Jhonen Vasquez, that ran from 1995-1997. If you want more information about where and how to read it, I wrote a guide that you can find here.

It's about a serial killer that's forced to feed fresh blood to a wall that's alive with a monster behind it. There's a mysterious "sickness" posessing him, making him kill anyone that even so slighty pisses him off. The guy's only friends are a dead rabbit and a pair demonically-posessed pillsbury doughboys...Our hero (who's really a villian) is a whiny bitch who goes by "Nny" instead of "John" for short. He draws an awful comic called "Happy Noodle Boy" that's only popular with the homeless insane.



....But it's just a silly comic book, so don't take it too seriously, okay? ;)

".....Why do you like these comics so much?"

There’s no easy way to describe my tender feelings about a comic book that has “homicidal maniac” in the title, but I’ll do my very best to try.

If you know the series already, there’s a good chance that you’re cringing in your seat at the sight of this. Maybe you’re having war flashbacks: to buying a issue with a pair of black and white striped socks at Hot Topic, listening to edgy loud music of your genre of choice, and thinking that this comic was the only thing that “ReALLY UnDerStood Tha True YoU”!!! This memory is ugly. This memory hates their parents, the mean kids at school. This memory screams for blood--to tear down the world and it's superficial facade until it's just guts and viscera.


A tweet about JTHM that I found by accident, that was too incredible to not save. (It's not mine, but I wish it was!)

...At the end of the day, you might have an uncomfortable relationship with this comic, because it's intertwined with the ugliest part of your childhood.

I like to imagine it was something of a primal scream on the authors part—it was his entry point into the world of comics,

…but I could just be projecting.

But let's appreciate the angst, for a moment! It got us to where we are today, after all--
It's earnest. It's messy. It's stupid. It's honest. It's awkward. It's fucking beautiful.

"......But how can you love a homicidal maniac?!"

Well…he’s real cute sometimes. Heavy emphasis on “sometimes”.

But the honest truth is: I read these comics at an extremely vulnerable time in my young life. A time full of abuse and trauma. I don’t want to use this space to whine and get too deep into my own personal issues, but...I think I may have imprinted on this character in a way that’s a bit...odd. As an adult, I’m painfully aware of this—I don’t want to dance around this character’s problematic short-comings. I’ll fully admit that I romanticize Nny in a way that absolutely isn’t canon to the source material...

But...
He’s like a guardian angel to me.
An angel with black wings, that found me when I was in complete darkness.


...In reality, I know he’d just chop me up into pieces, or something. I feel like a dingus for writing this out.

But, when it comes down to it, I like him most when he's vulnerable. His moments of humanity are always brief, but I can't help but cling to them--when he questions his actions, when he breaks down and cries for a more normal life that he can't remember...These tiny moments where he's not a neurotic killing machine...Quick flashes of fragility

"....This is still weird. What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Short answer: Everything.

Long answer: In order to self-ship with a character that would most certainly eviscerate you immediately, you do have to bend the rules of canon quite a bit.

I do imagine him killing me, yes--but I also enjoy imagining my self-insert killing him. The feelings are mutual, sometimes! I know some folks have these elaborate self-insert stories where there's a set timeline, but this doesn't exist for Nny and I. Everything's fluid, life and death have little meaning in our universe, and we just exist in this endless cycle of madness...

But for the most part, we're just chillin. Sometimes we even have our own idol unit!!!

...Anyway, if this somehow isn't clear to you, this is all a fantasy. I'd like to make it very clear that NONE OF THIS IS REAL! All of these scenarios that I act out in my Mind Palace are all things that I prefer to remain in complete fantasy...I have no interest in people who are actually this violent in real life.



...So don't take this so serious! I sure as hell don't. Well, I mean--I do. Johnny means everything to me, but also...You have to laugh at situation this absurd, no?