List of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac characters

None

This is a list of characters of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, a comic book by Jhonen Vasquez.

The series focuses on the self titled "villain" Johnny C., also known as Nny (pronounced “knee”). He is a crazy and psychopathic serial killer, mass murderer and spree killer, who interacts with other characters, more often than not torturing and murdering them. He elaborately and sadistically kills anyone who even slightly irritates him, then drains their blood and paints one of the walls in his house with it (to keep a monster from getting out). If the situation dictates, Johnny is willing to murder "innocent" people, though in his twisted mind, he typically manages to justify his acts. The number of Johnny's victims is in the hundreds—or perhaps even thousands. Authorities are unable to capture Johnny and seem unaware of his existence, though his crimes are often witnessed in public and reported by the few who manage to survive. Nny acknowledges this fact, and it appears that the supernatural forces at work in his life prevent his being captured or killed. He is often devoid of a conscience, and acknowledges that he is insane. This insanity manifests itself in three entities: Nailbunny, who is the closest thing to a conscience that Nny possesses; and Psychodoughboy and Mr. Eff, two styrofoam Pillsbury doughboys who argue over whether Nny should kill himself or simply continue to kill others. Sometimes, Johnny displays feelings of self hatred for his actions. This shows in his many monologues and suicide attempts. He even has what appear to be moments of clarity, but these are short lived, and quickly turn into yet more crazed rants accompanied by bloodshed. At the end of the comic, Johnny attempts to reform himself by abandoning his emotions in favor of cold intellect, going on what is referred to as a "vacation." This open ended conclusion leaves room for a second series of comics, but the creator has expressed no interest so far to continue Nny's story. In the final issue of Squee, it is revealed that following the events of JTHM, Nny spent some time at a mental hospital, as a participant in a sleep study, but subsequently left the hospital despite researchers' enthusiasm for analyzing his "dreams." Though his exact age is unknown, Vasquez has been quoted saying Johnny is in his early twenties. According to the Director's Cut, he is 5' 9" and 115 lbs, making him very underweight. In JTHM: The Director's Cut, it is said that Johnny's parents were murdered by an "evil man," but this is an obvious joke, as the description goes on to say that after this traumatic event, 'Nny became a masked crime fighter. Throughout the series, no information is given about Johnny's family or of his past, and even Johnny is deprived of all but occasional flashes of memory. A running theory on Johnny's origin is that he was once a brilliant artist who lost his talent, and subsequently went insane. This theory is supported by Devi's recollection in issue 2 of I Feel Sick of a conversation between herself and Johnny in which Johnny laments his loss of painting talent and implies that he began to kill as a way of filling that void. In issue 4 of JTHM, Nailbunny chastises Johnny for drawing his Happy Noodle Boy comic instead of painting. However, Vasquez has written that he did not intend to give Johnny a concrete origin story, stating, "[I] find the blurriness of it all much more appealing than making him go nuts over being pantsed in school once. 'YAAAARGH!! I have been pantsed!! I kill like the damned now!!' That's just not done." After the comic was released, Vasquez set up a Twitter page for Johnny, where he puts out random comments that he makes, often about what he does while he's killing people, or just simply ideas.

Also known as Todd Casil, but nicknamed Squee, the namesake originating from the sound the child makes when scared. He is Johnny's friend and next door neighbor. Squee's mother is implied to suffer from a vague drug addiction, and his father resents his very existence and has no qualms about constantly telling him so. Squee has a teddy bear named Shmee, who is conscious in Todd's own psyche; Shmee happens to be a trauma sponge, and constantly tells Squee to do evil things. Vasquez later authored a comic series, Squee!, with this character as the protagonist. Johnny is the only person who really cares about Squee, serving as his least evil friend, though he constantly frightens him unintentionally. Johnny has hinted from time to time that his interest in Squee is partially due to his desire to ensure that Squee doesn't grow up to be like him. Also, Johnny has actively taken measures to ensure the safety of Squee, by killing and mutilating a pedophile poised to abduct Squee. A sad, lonely, and mistreated little boy at about 6 or 7 years old, Squee is frightened by almost everything, and is terrified of his evidently disturbed neighbor. Despite this however, Johnny takes a shine to Squee, seeing him as something of a little brother from the family he never had (or simply cannot remember). On several occasions Johnny talks to Squee about his opinions on humanity and the various tribulations of life, usually ending in Squee being horrified by the 'examples' Johnny uses in order to get his point across. Squee's father despises him and wishes that he was never born. Squee's mother is often so doped on various pills that she doesn't recognize Squee or is unaware of what is happening around her. Their detachment from their son also prevents them from noticing the numerous occasions in which Johnny breaks into the house. Squee's other only true friend is a teddy bear named Shmee. At one point he meets and 'befriends' the son of the Devil, a boy named Pepito.

Nicknamed "The One That Got Away", Devi befriends Johnny and becomes a potential love interest, though she is unaware of his antisocial behavior until he attempts to murder her. A struggling artist, she works in a bookstore for half the duration of the comic; the other half is spent painting in her apartment. Devi was one of the few people who actually met Johnny in person and lived to tell about it. She's also the only person (besides Squee) Johnny has ever truly felt any positive feelings for. They met in the bookstore she once worked in before she became a professional artist, and went on a date that ended in almost being able to kiss, but instead, Johnny felt so happy that he wanted to 'immortalize the moment' and attacked Devi. Instead, she beat him up and fled. Ever since, he has been occasionally trying to contact her to apologize and try and explain his odd reasons for trying to kill her, in which she responds to by locking herself in her apartment and screaming at him over the phone. Johnny seems to show selflessness toward her by trying to become cold so he has a lesser chance of killing her. Devi was later the subject of the doubleshot comic "I Feel Sick" in which she struggles to maintain her own sanity. She converses with a painting of a doll named Sickness, and the ensuing power struggle hints at the possibility of the dark supernatural forces that were Johnny's undoing.

Tess R. and Dillon are two people who play part of the goth parody in the series. Krik is a violent misogynist (he claims to have beaten his girlfriend and her grandmother) and chauvinist who is abducted by Johnny for drunkenly harassing him. Apparently, Johnny removed a chunk of his brain from the back of his head, making him nearly lose sanity. Tess' family moved around a lot so she has a hard time making friends. She is a pseudo goth in order to make friends with others. She dates Dillon because he's in a band. Dillon uses the goth culture as a means of excluding and ridiculing others. They come into Johnny's grasp due to Dillon's constant badgering during Kafka: Johnny makes a point of ignoring Tess and tormenting Dillon, who is unaware of the fact that Tess dislikes him. After Johnny's accidental 'death', Tess and Krik try to escape, but are slowed down by running into other prisoners in the dungeons and encountering the doughboys. Although Krik (who released Tess from Johnny's captivity) and Dillon were quite literally torn apart, Tess presumably escaped—although at this point there appeared to have been no universe into which to escape. She was not actually killed but was "flushed" with the rest of reality: she survived once the universe was "reloaded." Anne Gwish (see below) makes a reference to her being just out of frame later in the series. In Invader Zim, Jhonen Vasquez's later television series, the episode "Game Slave 2" features a Battery Clerk bearing a striking resemblance to Tess, but whether or not it is her is unknown.

Edgar Vargas is a man who is abducted and killed by Johnny early in the series. During the single short storyline in which he appears, Edgar appears strapped into one of Nny's basement torture devices. Despite his predicament, he states that he is not afraid of Johnny's threats to kill him, because according to his religion, he will go to heaven, while Nny will be punished for his crimes in hell. Nny appears to contemplate this, and even seems to enjoy talking with Edgar, referring to him as his "bestest, bestest friend in the room, currently." Nevertheless, Johnny ultimately ignores any "lesson" his meeting with Edgar may have been intended to impart, and kills him anyway. However, Nny explicitly states that this is not done out of anger or hatred, but out of a necessity to "feed" Edgar's blood to the wall monster that controls Nny. This is the first instance in the book where it is indicated that the wall has become a key reason behind Johnny's violent actions. It is also an instance in which Johnny shows some degree of remorse, or at least a lack of enjoyment in, killing someone, as he says, after the murder is complete, "Well, that did nothing for me."

Anne Gwish is a goth woman who is featured in her own page long comics in later issues of the JTHM. These strips are unrelated to the main storyline, though Anne lives in the same fictional universe as Johnny and the other characters. The strips featuring her are largely a satire on stereotypical goth culture's tendencies towards pretension and exaggeration by individuals of their personal suffering. Within the Anne Gwish strips, there are several puns and parodies on gothic subculture found in the backgrounds, including posters for "Johnny the Hamicidal Maniac" (depicting Johnny as a pig), "Ditchspade Symphony" (a parody of the band Switchblade Symphony), "The Shmoe" (a rather obvious parody of The Crow), "Nine Inch Heels" (Parody of Nine Inch Nails), and "The Dirtman" (referencing the comic The Sandman). In the back of the JTHM: Director's Cut, it was revealed that Vasquez liked the idea of Anne Gwish being the "most physically attractive" of his characters, as it "only frames more distinctly how HORRIBLE a person she is inside."