Jhonen Vasquez

Jhonen was born and raised on San Jose's East Side. After graduating Mount Pleasant high school in 1992, he began film classes at De Anza College. Jhonen, however, is most widely recognized for his comic book works that include "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac," "Squee," and "I Feel Sick: A book about a girl." His (most popular) "Johnny..." series was first published in Carpe Noctem, an underground Goth magazine out of Mount Pleasant in 1995. Vasquez was soon picked up by Slave Labor Graphics, which is still his current publisher.

Jhonen pitched the idea of Invader Zim when contacted by (now executive producer of the show) Mary Harrington. According to an interview, Jhonen comments on the show:

``The idea of doing a show for Nickelodeon, there's just something so twisted about that,'' he says. ``I'm not out to make some nasty, heinous show that will completely destroy the network or anything like that.

``But just the idea, just the thing that I had a show on Nickelodeon, people go, `YOU? My gawd, what are they trying to do to the children?' And I usually throw my head back and laugh for 10 minutes. And then when I'm done, I say, `Well, I thought it would be interesting...and it has been interesting -- if not joyous.''