3 out of 5

Even though he’s smart enough to be aware of his own indulgences, Jhonen can only point a finger at himself so many times in so many pages in an attempt to call out his b.s as it’s happening, and thus Fillerbunny can only remain afloat in its mini incarnations – undersized, a few pages.  It’s an expansion of a character created as filler for an extra page of ‘Squee,’ and the appeal is understandable – created solely for our entertainment, FB exists in constant pain of being tortured to stay chipper for his readers / viewers, making for the lovely cute and fucking crazy juxtaposition that Jhonen worked even when piecing together the darker Johnny books.  Had he not set himself unreasonable deadlines of one or two nights to finish each issue (except the ‘epic’ third one, the best of the bunch), the inherent satire might’ve been fleshed out more instead of jittering between incensed pages of gross out gags and a cartoon representaiton of Jhonen being yelled at by ‘chief’ to make his work more marketable… but, admittedly, the same frantic sloppiness of the issues made them fun for Mr. Vasquez (after the fact, perhaps) and that fun absolutely translates.  I’ll always find his gags and randomness more amusing than his barrier pushing, hence why Invader Zim worked, so some of the bits miss the mark, but occasionally it’ll zip back around to something ridiculously inspired (like Fillerbunny’s guts endlessly squeezed out of his poo hole and sending him flying).  The third issue, which feels more ‘plotted’ and actually reconciles the Fillberbunny world with the cartoon Jhonen world, is nigh a masterpiece of random mishmash, and stands near the top of the pile of funny stuff J.V.’s committed upon the world.  But on the whole, these three issues feel more enjoyable and funny than the actually might be to read, the creator’s experiences making them effecting one through the pages.  Alas, when you read it back over again and realize that the direct laughs are somewhat absent, the sentiment deflates.  But FB’s still pretty cute.