Category Archives: animation

INVADER ZIM Fact #18

Why am I black and pantsless?

I ONCE SAVED THE WORLD BY BEATING A LITTLE GIRL TO DEATH WITH HER OWN CAT.

Alright, now that we’ve gotten the intro part of these posts out of the way, we can really just dive right into the pertinent stuff, the stuff you want to shoot up between your toes while everyone in the room looks away sickened, the hard stuff…

The ZIM stuff.

At the time of getting my own show on network television, my only writing experience had been in comics, and even then comics written as though I was being chased by bears in the forest as I scrawled down whatever I could and getting lucky if any of it made a bit of sense.  What’s sad about that is, of all the comic books I had done up to then only one of them had actually been written while I was being chased by bears.

The network took that huge leap of faith, putting me, untested, in the gunner’s seat of a huge operation the way it did, but it wasn’t quite okay with not putting a few safeguards in place around me.  These came in the form of far more seasoned professionals who had experience working either in animation or in television production in general.
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INVADER ZIM Fact #17

My home. The home of my people. My awesome people.

Since I decided to commit to these entries a day, more and more people have written in, not so much to say that they are loving or hating what I am writing, but to ask why I would even be writing these at all.  Now, I’m not the sort of person that relates to the desire to sit down and write a letter to, oh, say the Keebler elves and ask why they’re wasting their time on making cookies when they should really be focusing on their crackers – I just don’t have that kind of interest in things, but I’ve gotten that kind of question often enough to know that some people really do think that way.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s a snippet from one such message that popped up on some other site: Continue reading →

INVADER ZIM Fact #16

Cooksey. The man. The mullet.

Guess who’s in a hotel room, jacked into the sweet sweet wireless, and writing another ZIM FACT on their laptop and not on their phone? And guess who hit a cop giving a guy a ticket on the side of the freeway and is now waiting in terror of the furious banging on their hotel room door, freezing their ass off because he’s leaving the window open so as to more quickly leap out for a quick getaway like William H. Macy in Fargo?

But that’s just human life and not animated hijinks, so enough about that, yeah?

As I am holed up here, my car hidden behind a Shari’s Restaurant down the street, out of sight and hopefully safe from all but people lurching out and vomiting cheese sticks behind Shari’s, my laptop my only real source of warmth  against the night air blasting through my escape hatch, I can enjoy a bit more time to write this latest entry to do my part for the people of Earth.
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INVADER ZIM Fact #15

Here I am, back in the car, traveling back home from a very successful appearance at the Emerald City Comicon.

Like before, I am writing this using my futuristic iPhone communicator. Unlike before, I am not writing this entry under the influence of my natural inclination to deceive you, softening your understanding of reality, making you easier to utilize for my own nefarious purposes.
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INVADER…oh my god…ZIM Fuuhhhh…FACT #14

I eat too many somethings.

My stomach!  Oh god why did I eat so much pizza?  What the hell was I thinking?

After the con today, we went to a pizza place in the Fremont  district here in Seattle…a place called Kylie’s.  Landry Walker (so called for his crazy habit of walking and not getting everywhere by unicycle like everyone else) told us that it was a kind of offshoot of Little Star Pizza, my favorite pizza joint in San Francisco.

Well, the pizza was great and all, but maybe too great.  I couldn’t stop eating it.

“JHONEN, PLEASE STOP EATING IT!” was the cry coming from everyone in my group, as well as from strangers sitting at other tables and some of the wait staff.

I just laughed at them and kept going, slice after fat, Chicago-style slice.  “You guys should just calm down!” I’d yell back, giggling through a mouth full of dough.

“AAHHAHHAHHAHHAHH!  AAAAAAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHHHH!!!!”, I’d go, eyes watering at how stupid they were all being, their faces no longer laughing along with me, now growing more and more upset as they watched me grab for another slice.

An hour later, I wasn’t laughing anymore, but I was still eating.  I was eating and crying and though my hands and mouth went right on in getting more and more pizza into me, my eyes pleaded with the room to stop me, to stop this mockery of a pizza feast.

“H…help me.  Help me to be human.”, I chewed.  By that point, nobody dared go near me.  I was a monster to them, a thing that defied logic and abhorred the natural way of things.

I was beyond salvation.

I don’t even understand how that much pizza got into me when I only have so much stomach room.  It’s…oh fuck…sweet christ.  Alright…it’s passed.  Felt like I was going to throw up just then.  Okay…It’s like the pizza began bypassing my full stomach and was being routed to other, non-digestive tract parts of my body like my calves and elbows or something.  I think that’s what must have happened…yeah.  Yeah, when I mush myself around in those places I can feel pizza in there.

Okay…I’m gonna make it through this.  Just…just don’t look at me while I do it, okay?  You’re making these incredibly uncomfortable faces as you watch me struggle and claw at my guts.  That sick look on your face is going to just push me over the edge and…oh fuck…oh fuck…
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