reading notes

by Jhonen Vasquez

ISBN: 0943151244

Vasquez has created a disturbing, crude, and very funny book.

This book is a compilation: the first half is the collected issues of Squee, and the second half collects the Meanwhile and Wobbly Headed Bob, and Happy Noodle Boy. There are also a few guest-artist pages, and a couple of Filler Bunny pages. I had not read any of these before, but I have a sense of humor just sick enough to think I’d appreciate this collection.

On the whole, I was not disappointed. Squee, with his stuffed companion Shmee, is a woefully unfortunate child. His parents are hysterically neglectful; his best friend at school is the son of Satan; aliens want to abduct him. The stories were among the strongest in the book because they concentrated on the Squee’s personal horror, which had many variations. In particular, the depiction of the school environment played to extremes was spot-on.

I didn’t like the Wobby Headed Bob stories as well, because WHB is a one-note character. (That note being the misery of his superiority and his need to carry that message to all.) This was probably fine in the short bits he originally appeared in, but was too much repitition when read together.

The Meanwhile stories (known as “Meanwhiles”) don’t suffer from this problem, however. The stories are a bit longer, and don’t always feature the same characters. They are more fleshed out, and I liked some of these quite a bit–they feature the same sick sense of humor as the Squee stories.

As far as Happy Noodle Boy goes, I didn’t care for him at all. Drawn crudely (which is the point) and lacking much of story, this seems to be serving not much purpose beyond Vasquez’s self-indulgence.

Visually, he makes a lot of use of angles, perspective, and for lack of a better word, splatter. This works to convey a sense of energy more than a sense of movement: terror and anxiety often aren’t about movement (except for the shaking.) The drawing of Squee’s stories and the Meanwhiles sometimes verges on crude, and is outright crude with WHB and TNB.

I’d like to read more Squee stories and more Meanwhiles. The others (with the exception of the one-page appearances of amusing Filler Bunny) I could do without. If twisted humor is your thing, and you aren’t overly squeamish, you should check it out.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 8th, 2002 at 9:58 pm and is filed under comics/graphic novels.