I don’t know how present you are on tumblr anymore, or if you’ll see this at all, if it somehow reaches your ear (eyes?) that’s great. If not, I wanted to get it out there anyway. You are a big inspiration to me. Your art, writing, the catharsis expressed therein, the catharsis I feel reading it. All mean so much to me. MEANT so much to me. To little preteen me, bullied ruthlessly at school for being different (autistic) and poor and messy. For being neglected and emotionally abused at home by parents who should’ve been doing better by me.

I was around 11 when I read Johnny The Homicidal Maniac. Definitely too young for it. But…I needed it at the time. I realize that more now than I did then. If I didn’t have your work, if I didn’t have Johnny as an outlet…I don’t know if I’d be here today. I do know I wouldn’t be here in the same way. I’d be worse off. More hurt. More angry. Less hopeful. I cannot understate how important this comic, (and eventually Squee! And I Feel Sick, and of course Invader Zim) were to me. How formative your humor and your pure, raw, expression of sometimes pretty heavy, angry emotions was for little me. Your work was one of few outlets I had, when I was drowning in anger, depression, loneliness, I’d stay up late sometimes all night, just reading your work. And that helped. I felt the bite of rage and anxiety and neglect less.

Now I’m grown up. I feel the love of my siblings and the closeness to them after all the crap we endured unjustly. I feel hope for the future even with all the mundane (and sometimes less mundane) shit I deal with regularly. And when I read your comics, I still feel that same relief I felt as a weird, lonely little pre-teen. I cannot thank you enough for what you put out into the world. I cannot thank you enough for how it helped me. How it continues to help me. I’m wishing you the happiest of birthdays. Below are some panels of yours that make me laugh and some that make me think. That make me feel relief. I hope you have many more great years ahead Mr. Vasquez, and I hope your work reaches others in the same way it has me. In fact I know it has. Wishing you well. A big fan.

"nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them" Assata Shakur