Squee's Wonderful, Big, Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors by Jhonen Vasquez
by William the Bloody
Yes, Vasquez, the twisted weirdo behind Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, is back with a spin-off book about "Squee," Johnny's innocent child neighbor. We follow Todd, also known as "Squee" because this is the noise he makes when he is terrified beyond words, on his day-to-day life and the awful mockery and horror that it is. Everything from threatened alien experimentation, to over-sized dust mites, to torturous school-mates, to horrifically unloving parents is there to mentally scar our little cherub of a lead character. Squee confides in and hides behind his only friend, his teddy bear Shmee, who it seems, if dreams are to believed, acts as a kind of horror-filter for little Squee thus ensuring his continued survival. And there is blood and terror abound for our little hero.
There are also compiled in the back, the "back-up stories" which were published with Squee and various Johnny the Homicidal Maniac books. These stories have absolutely nothing to with the main continuity of Squee or Johnny and are just little bonus material of equally twisted darkly comical glee.
The Good: Vasquez's art style is well suited to black and white publishing, using stark contrasts whenever possible. He's also unafraid of perspective, and uses very angular and sharp camera angles every so often to liven things up. Fans of Invader Zim will know he's no stranger to making a good cute, big eyed kid look utterly terrified or evil, depending on the case. Zim fans will also recognize Squee's teacher as the precursor to Zim's teacher, Miss Bitters.
Some of the bits in Squee are pretty funny. I like story with the ghost girl, and half the time the story with Granpa Hatey was pretty good. I have to say, though, that I liked Satan's child, Pepito, the best. Oh, and the horrendous school children. When the kids pick on Squee, and this one girl comes over after and she says all concerned like, "I saw what they did to you...I thought it was REALLY FUNNY!" I laughed like crazy.
The secret shining star here is of course the "Meanwhiles," what Jhonen calls his back-up stories. I was very, very pleased that they were included in the collection after they were glaringly omitted from my Johnny trade paperback. Thankfully, he put all the missing Meanwhiles from Johnny in this book, too, so I don't have to stab him with a ballpoint pen. The True Tales of Human Drama are each pure gold. They are all very short, but also very hilarious. The first one, with the baby dressed in a bunny suit, flying through the air before it explodes... priceless. I was so glad to finally read of Devi's awful date with the guy who shit himself. That ending... whooo. The semi-autobiographical strips about Jhonen himself are wonderful treasures. And Tickle Me Hellmo! Holy Jebus is that awesome. Hellmo doesn't just giggle and twitch! After the giggling and the twitching come several other levels of play... level 5 sharp poke with a stck... level 7 starts reciting goth poetry... level 13 hypnotizes child into admitting to parents about alternative lifestyle... level 16 re-enacts the torture scene from Reservoir Dogs... ! And the coup de grace is the "Horrible Film Directed by Jhonen Vasquez," in which Jhonen attempts to write a movie with the sole purpose of test how much an audience can take before getting ill. Groovy.
The Bad: I think this collection was put together poorly. I'm sure it was great when it was released as individual issues but here...? Separating it out into Squee and then Meanwhiles kind of made it a hard read. Sure, Squee is cute and all, but just reading page after page of his torment is kind of like watching a train wreck. Johnny was great because it is about a tormentor, torturing various people, but Squee is about the tormented, one single kid getting tormented over and over again. There is only so much of watching one kid squirm that I can take at once, thanks. Sadly the Meanwhiles about Wobbly Headed Bob had this problem, too. Bob is Ok in small doses, but he had a lot of them, and he put them all in there together one after another, I kind of had the "enough already!" feeling. Happy Noodle Boy makes his sorry appearance, but luckily, not much. Aaand of course the obligatory Johnny appearance at the very end of Squee. I don't see what this achieved in the book really. More fun with filler, perhaps? Squee's tale was all done so we get the looong transition and then into Johnny for what, 5 panels? Why?
Overall, the art is decent utilizing its own unique style, and most of the stories are darkly funny.
Breaking it down, Squee, C+; Meanwhiles, A; whole book, B-