Customer Reviews

Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors

5 star:		(88)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jhonen Vasquez did not disappoint me when I decided to pick up "Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors." Just when I thought he couldn't top "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac," I read this and found myself laughing aloud like crazy. Dark, twisted, disturbing, and overwhelmingly hilarious, this comic collection is unforgettable and highly entertaining--even if you don't want to admit it!!

If you've read "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac," then you will be familiar with the cute little boy named, Squee. Squee is a kid who seems to have the worst luck in the world. His parents hate him and wish that he would someday vanish without a trace. All of the school kids hate him and torment him. To make matters worse, he has the most dreadful nightmares about monsters and aliens. He even meets these creatures when he isn't asleep. From running away from his cannibalistic grandpa to persuading the aliens to take his parents away instead of him, from battling the dreaded "Dustmites" to the threat of becoming a mindless zombie school student, Squee is destined to grow up having some serious "issues." The book also includes the comic strips "Wobbly Headed Bob," "Fun with Filler (aww, look at the cuuute little bunny rabbit doing his filler dance!!),"Happy Noodle Boy," and the "Meanwhile" strips that were very much absent from "JTHM: The Director's Cut."

While I think "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" is Jhonen's most creative and disturbing work, I found "Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors" to be much more entertaining and hilarious. There were many times where I was laughing very loudly as I was reading this. It's so funny that so many horrible things can happen to such a cute little character. It makes you feel guilty for laughing... but that quickly goes away and then you laugh some more--and in an even more demonic and unrelenting tone! The drawings are great and the characters are extremely humorous. Another cool thing is that Jhonen LOVES to throw in hidden messages and jokes within certain panels, so be on the lookout for them. Another reason to read this more than once.

Again, this is not intended for younger readers. While I found this much more easier to take than "JTHM," it's still very twisted, dark, disturbing and graphic. There are some very dark themes and imagery in this collection of comics, so it's not intended for those who easily get offended or disturbed. And, you must keep in mind that this book is here strictly for entertainment purposes only and is not to be taken seriously. Jhonen loves to poke fun at everything wrong in society--and even at his own work!

If you want to read something very twisted, deranged, and hilarious, "Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors" is just the thing for you. Again, it's nothing for the easily offended. Even though it's a pretty short read, I found this to be one heck of an entertaining read and it's something I'll be sure to read a number of times in the very near future. Another slam-dunk for Vasquez and his sick and warped sense of humor! -Michael Crane

I enjoyed Jhonen Vasquez' "I Feel Sick" mini-series, so when I saw the Squee trade-paperback, I picked it up, not knowing what to expect...

Well, I certainly wasn't expecting it to be one of the best Comics I've ever read, but that's just what it was.

The first half of the book is comprised of Squee stories- Squee is a little boy whose parents have no use for him; he is pursued by Aliens & Monsters, pushed around by bullies, and his only friend is the new kid at school....who just happens to be the Son of The Devil...

I had no problem immediately falling in love with little Squee- He's so CUTE! (And who wouldn't identify with the childhood fear of waking up facing the wall.....with your back exposed to potential monster-attack!)

The other half of the book is comprised of short strips from Vasquez' Johnny the Homicidal Maniac comic. The "Meanwhile" strips are worth the purchase price alone. My favorite concerns a man on a first date who finds his stomach-ache turning into unexpected....Diarrhea. The way he attempts to explain this had me laughing for about 10 solid minutes.

This book has made me a Jhonen Vasquez fan for life, and I hope that I can get some other people to give this incredibly gifted creator a try.

Squee is one of those little treasures that is easily overlooked, but ever so worth it to those who give it a chance. the story is about a little boy named "Squee" who lives next door to Johnny C (of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac fame). Squee's life is a long and thorough list of traumatic experiences and damaging circumstances. torments come from all over space and time just to pick on him. that, sir, is a recipe for some real sick-o comedy.

as an added bonus, nearly half the book is composed of "meanwhiles," those little one to three page stories that were smattered throughout both the original comic or the JtHM series, but hadn't been reprinted yet. they're all here, from filler bunny to happy noodle boy to the classic "oh my god, someone put sh** in my pants!" date. for me, many of them were more entertaining than the main story (the exploding baby being particularly dear to my heart). also check out wobbly headed bob, he's a classic.

vasquez' illustrations are truly one of a kind. as with most artists, i would be hard pressed to describe it, but it fits the theme of the work perfectly. the detail and wit are stunning. i worship jhonen vasquez like a mayan god. he has shown so much improvement since he entered the limelight with JtHM. his latest effort,"I Feel Sick," continues this upswing both stylistically and intellectually (and it's in color, too!). i just wish he'd publish it more often...

If you're deciding to get this book, don't wait. GET IT. THis book is will blow you away--amazing storyline, developed and dimensional characters, superb detailed art---you don't need to worry, it's all here and 100x more worthy than you'd ever expect. Squee is a cute little boy who has the unfortunate luck to always bump into homicidal slayings, aliens, blood, gore, animal mutilation, etc--all of which traumatize him to such a degree where his eyes are permanently frozen wide. Altho this sounds gory, you will just FALL IN LOVE with squee b/c of his innocence and pure adorableness. You will LAUGH, sympathizing with Squee b/c you too, were once a child, and you too, were scared of monsters and murderers hiding under your bed... sleeping against the wall to maintain a "forcefield"... only with Squee--it's REAL! now can you just imagine what crazy adventures come next? Also included in this book are a series of strips called "wobbly headed bob" which is just genius! Intellectually brilliant and insightful it will just amaze you to no end. The author, Jhonen Vasquez, is a brooding genius with skyrocketing IQ and untamed imagination that is boundless. Ever meet anyone like that? No? well then, read SQUEE, what are you waiting for?

This book was a great thing to read. Squee's just the kind of kid you can relate to: his parents hate him, he's picked on in skool, his neighbor's a homicidal maniac, there are aliens after his organs, and his best friend is the Antichrist...okay, so he might not be the easiest kid to relate to, but he's still too cute, huh?

To tell the truth, this is one of my favorite comics I have ever read. It's funny, it's childish, it's completely sick and degenerative at times...and it was really uplifting after reading JTHM. The stories are delightfully creepy and horrible, and would make any censor want to projectile vomit all over their three-peice suit. As a warning, however, the 2 sickest (in my opinion, though I still read them with laughter and insanity) are the 'Granpa Hatey' and 'Dooky-Blood' strips. So if you have an extremely weak stomach...you know what, if you do, just don't read it. I don't think we want your guts all over the floor.

Squee's Big Giant Book comes with all the Meanwhiles, True Tales of Human Drama, Happy Noodle Boys, and Wobbly-Headed Bobs that Jhonen has published, with the exception of the HNBs in the JTHM Director's Cut. These are all pretty hilarious, however, Wobbly-Headed Bob does get old after a while.

So...umm...read it. Or I will eat your brain with cheez dip. Yum.

It's indescribable some of the wild and deranged moods I find myself entering whenever feasting my eyes on anything drawn, written, created, or illustrated by Jhonen Vasquez. In order to avoid repeating myself continuously throughout the review, I'll say this line once and only once: To understand the emotions and pleasurable insanity you experience with Vasquez's works, YOU MUST BUY THIS BOOK! That is the bottom line, so I just decided to get it over with early. On to the review...

I don't feel like going on to talk about Jhonen's history of comics and the birth of JtHM (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac) or any of that. I'll just focus on this book alone. It is a random mismash of many different stories, Meanwhiles, drawings, and ideas into one book, but it focuses on the main character, SQUEE, for the most part. Squee is a young boy named Todd who we grow to know and love as he becomes subject to all of the terrors of our childhood and experiences bizarre, strange things in his vulnerable, early years of youth. His parents absolutely hate him and ignore him completely, his only friend is his teddy bear named Shmee, and his neighbor is a psychotic serial killer named Johnny (The SQUEE comic series was actually a spinoff of JtHM, Jhonen's first original series, which focused solely on Johnny). He is forced to confront the unknown world of the weird and wacky on his own with only Shmee to keep him company.

The first half of this book is a collection of the four issues in the SQUEE comic series put together. Not only do we get to cackle in demented delight as Squee encounters monsters of many kinds, witnesses his parents being abducted by aliens, fights with his demonic schoolteacher, but we get to turn the page as the four issues finish and see that there is still another half of the book to read. And what a fantastic second half it turns out to be.

The second half presents the famous Meanwhile segments thrown into one giant collection. Jhonen is known for these strips as there were many of them thrown in throughout the JtHM issues. They were his way of taking a break from drawing endless pages of storytelling with only one or two characters at his disposal. He often would step out of the Johnny world and delve into a whole new world of fresh characters to draw and short, new page-long stories to write. This was his way of keeping himself from getting sick of Johnny and from going insane, and the stories would always begin with "Meanwhile..."

The first Meanwhile chunk is a hefty 11 pages of the Wobbly Headed Bob stories. This was a bit hard to bite off in one sitting. I can see why Jhonen only tossed them in here and there throughout the JtHM comics, so as to keep his readers from becoming bored. The Wobbly Headed Bob segments are, indeed, extremely repetitive and somewhat depressing. However, reading philosophy does enrich your mind, and you'll be surprised to find that most of Bob's deeply serious rants and references to modern society are frighteningly true. After that, we are treated to a few pages of Happy Noodle Boy segments, who spouts off random words of nonsensical craziness that only result in us wildly laughing at his silliness.

The rest of the book contains other random Meanwhiles about everyday human drama, a guy who gets diarrhea on a first date, a teenager who turns into a vampire, a guy who is forced to screw a chicken at the mercy of aliens, and a few wild adventures with Jhonen himself. You'll find yourself laughing, cringing, raising one eyebrow, and thinking deeply all at the same time. You'll also begin using many catchy Jhonen phrases and becoming used to reading his edgy, jagged dialogue. I found myself utterly bored at the look of Times New Roman and Arial when I came down to my computer. Wickedly fun to read and an instant keeper...

When I finished reading Squee! I couldn't stop laughing. Serously. After about three days of laughing** I was able to call all of my friends on the phone and lock them in my basement with the book** and not let them out until they had memorized every word**... but let's not get into that.

The first part of this collection of short stories is all about a little boy name Squee, or as it may be, Todd, which was his name before his parents realized they had to take him home from the hospital. Squee runs into all kinds of trouble, be it Satan's son, alien abductions, or really quite crazy neighbors!

The second part consists of short stories of completely different characters such as Wobbly Headed Bob, who aren't a part of Squee's world. Well... some of them. Like the guy and the aliens and that chicken... oh man... anyway, there are stories from one of Jhonen Vasquez's other book, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, that have absolutely nothing to do with Squee's world. Some of these stories do have anything to do with Squee's world, though. I sound like a psycho! Hot dogs!

I recommend this book to anyone who can read, and if you can't read, that's really a shame, because reading is fun! Yay!

**Just kidding!

A spin off of Jhonen Vasquez' Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee is non-stop hilarious from beginning to end. First featured in the pages of JtHM, his neighbor Squee has his share of very bad luck. His parents hate him, he has encounters with aliens, he's picked on in school, and he's invited for dinner by another kid named Pepito with horns on his head and has the devil for a father. There's all this and tons more to be had as Vasquez displays the same type of twisted humor that made JtHM so popular. I actually like Squee more than I did JtHM; you can't help but feel sorry for the kid while your laughing like an idiot at his plight. Also included are meanwhiles which include tales involving alien abduction experimentation, big headed vampires, a hilarious take on Tickle Me Elmo, and a tale starring Vasquez in which he gleefully pokes fun at himself.

As a follow up to the infamous JtHM series, Squee is a lighter more playful ride through Jhonen's world of creepy.... stuff. Everyone loved that cute hapless little boy who was so afraid of being killed by the crazy neighbor man and just about everything else! Now he stars in his own series of trauma, fear, and misery. But our job is to laugh at his expence. Squee is the sane fellow in a world of stupid aliens, cruel parents, creepy teachers, and zombie school mates. Know this as well, dear readers, you haven't seen the last of Johnny.

The second part of the book is a real treasure. It contains the Happy Noodle Boy comics, the Wobbly headed Bob comics, and the MEANWHILES from both Squee and Johnny. (The individual comix) They're side stories, but many are quite humorous and shocking. So go, and partake in the Jhonen-y goodness.

If you like any work by Jhonen Vasquez, you'll love this! If you read Johnny the homocidal maniac, then you know who Squee is, a little boy (who's real name is todd)...his mom ignores him, his dad hates everything about his existence, and his neighbor is...well...a psycho killer who stops by for band aids. this has all the four isssues of the comic series, and things from JTHM that didnt even get in JTHM: the director's cut... if youre only starting to get into this world of Jhonen Vasquez's art, you should get this...everyone should get this really...