Definitely Lol With You There. Its Actually Bizarre To Me When People Do Walk Away With That Impression,

Definitely lol with you there. It’s actually bizarre to me when people do walk away with that impression, because the tone of jthm is actually… pretty cynical about the rate of media literacy among people. It DOES actually do a bare minimum amount of explicit pointers and even quite a bit of hand holding specifically for these edgelord types. Johnny literally meets a copycat killer and biggest fan of his and it fills him with nothing but rage and unfathomable disgust.

He constantly condemns all he is and only views his violence as a meaningful solution to society’s problems to the degree that (spoiler?) literal eldritch forces have manipulated him into delusionally believing so, for their own ends. He’s not the most reliable narrator alone, but he is pointed out constantly by his hallucinations AND sane humans for his incoherent hypocrisy in the comics. For all his complete immunity to consequences to his actions, he’s still a miserable, isolated person increasingly warped from the individual he used to be. He pretends he subscribes to a set of justifiable standards and rules to weed out the “worthy victims” from the innocent, and then again, and again, his fits of vitriolic bloodlust are portrayed with all of the senselessness and arbitrary cruelty that they deserve to be viewed through. When challenged on this front, he doesn’t ultimately have any explanation beyond excuses, excuses, constant excuses that he knows are such deep down… when he is lucid enough to actually introspect. He’s a “maniac” by the literal title of the series.

If anything, JTHM could be the ultimate beginner-level literacy test for a reader’s most basic common sense ability to understand the difference between “protagonist” and “role model”.

Between “things that happen/story themes” and “lessons the author is trying to impart on you”.

Between the voice of an unreliable, imperfect main character and the voice of a hero’s objective wisdom.

Between the narrative deconstruction of a flawed character and when an irredeemable monster is being woobified.

My favorite sardonic, back-handed slap in the face on that front was particularly this panel

[STUPID PEOPLE: I would ask you to keep in mind that this should not be a source of moral guidance (that would be movies) Put away the knives and never allow yourself to forget: you are stupid - JCV]

JTHM/IFS feels like a media literacy and/or personal maturity litmus test. The comic's characters and events are presented with such a combination of absurdity and neutrality...that it opens a lot of room for misinterpretation, depending on where you're at in life. A lot of media actively handholds you towards feeling [X] or [Y] about a character, but Jhonen Vasquez just...doesn't do that [very respectable], and allows the audience to draw their own conclusions. I've seen a fascinating amount of people walk away from JTHM being unquestioningly reverent of Johnny as a character, which like, lol...but in a weird way I kinda like that? Basically, every copy of JTHM is personalized.

The Night Angler is so baby girl actually I love her so much like

Work it

stunning

A spooky and snakey little short I've been working on! 🧡 Happy Halloween!

I dread that they knew exactly what they were doing

Give The Gift Of Grooming 🎁

🚨 Our BIGGEST Sale of the Year! 🚨 Get 25% off + free shipping on the best men's grooming products during our Black Friday Sale!