Jhonen Vasquez was born and raised on San Jose's East Side. He
graduated from Mount Pleasant High in 1992 and was a one-time film
student at De Anza College. Even though he has little formal artistic
training, he entered the world of alternative comics, as the
writer/creator/artist of such titles as "SQUEE!" and "Johnny, The
Homicidal Maniac", both published by Slave Labor Graphics. "SQUEE!" was
nominated for several Eisner Awards, the comic industry's equivalent of
the Oscars.
When working on Invader Zim, Nickelodeon wanted the office where it was
being made to be decorated with pictures of Invader Zim's characters.
Nickelodeon wanted cute characters, but Jhonen decided to put up
pictures of Bloaty instead.
First name is pronounced "Joe-nen"
Suffers from hypnophobia, which is the extreme fear of falling asleep. As a result, many of his characters are insomniacs and the name of his company is Question Sleep, represented by a Z followed by a question mark, "Z?".