A planned revival of Invader Zim as a comic series by BOOM! Studios has met with controversy, as the cartoon’s creator, Jhonen Vasquez, said on social media that he is not involved in the comic, nor was he consulted on it.
BOOM! revealed the new Invader Zim comic last week, with plans to bring back out-of-print collections alongside new stories later this year. The announcement promised “entirely new invasions, conspiracies, and catastrophically ridiculous adventures” featuring Zim, GIR, Dib and Gaz. The original Invader Zim animated series ran on Nickelodeon and is owned by Paramount.
“I have no involvement in any of the comics, nor was I told they were gonna be happening so I was never offered a chance to throw my voice into the mix in some way,” he said in a long statement posted to Threads and other platforms.
Writer Jim Zub, who is contributing to the new series alongside artist Dax Gordine, raised concerns in his newsletter, writing that he’d been told approvals would go through the “Invader Zim team” but later learned the sign-off actually came from a Paramount licensing team rather than Vasquez or series writer Eric Trueheart. Zub said he’d been given the impression there was “enthusiastic support from the original team” behind the project, which he said turned out not to be the case.
Vasquez confirmed that he learned about the new comics the same way the public did, through the announcement. He contrasted the new series with Oni Press’s 50-issue run of Invader Zim, which he said he was invited to be as involved in as much as he wanted, including co-writing the initial issues with Trueheart and bringing in character designer Aaron Alexovich.
“You’d have to be special kind of oblivious to not understand why it still sucks to not have control over something you see as ‘yours,'” Vasquez wrote, while acknowledging that legally, that’s how licensing works once the rights are sold.
Vasquez asked fans to direct any frustration away from the creators working on the new books. Zub said that BOOM!’s editorial team told him they’ve since reached out to Vasquez in hopes of resolving the situation, though he doesn’t yet know the outcome.
Invader Zim ran on Nickelodeon from 2001 to 2002 before it was canceled, later becoming a cult favorite through DVD and Nicktoons reruns, the 2015 Oni Press comic revival and the 2019 Netflix film Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus.