Dragon Con is one of those conventions where you never quite know what you’re going to get to experience from year to year at the show floor, or who will be gracing the Walk of Fame over Labor Day weekend. This year, several members of the cult-classic show, Invader Zim, visited Atlanta to sign autographs and tell stories at different panels about the show.
When they weren’t participating in other aspects of the convention, three members the show – Jhonen Vasquez (creator of Invader Zim), Melissa Fahn (voice of Gaz), and Rikki Simons (voice of GIR) – sat down with several members of the media to talk about everything from Invader Zim, how it feels to see their show and roles influence other projects, and more.
You can check out more about Invader Zim at the official website, on Instagram, and on Facebook.
You can find out more about Rikki Simons at his official website, Melissa Fahn on Instagram, and Jhonen Vasquez at his Linktree.
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Memberships for Dragon Con 2026 are on sale now.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Operation Rainfall: Could you three please introduce yourselves?
Rikki Simons: I’m Rikki Simons, I’m the voice of GIR on Invader Zim.
Jhonen Vasquez: I’m Jhonen Vasquez, and I created Rikki. *laughs*
RS: Yes! This is my father. *laughs*
Melissa Fahn: And me! *laughs*
JV: These are all my children. *laughs*
MF: Hi, I’m Melissa Fahn, and I’m the voice of Gaz on Invader Zim.
OR: Unfortunately, the show was cut short. Where would you guys have liked to see your characters evolve to?
JV: Have you seen the show? No one evolves! *laughs*
OR: I should say – devolve to!
JV: It only gets dumber.
MF: I actually thought Gaz evolved a little bit.
JV: That’s actually true.
MF: Gaz did from the series to [Invader Zim:] Enter the Florpus.
JV: They seemed a little bit more like a family in the movie. A little bit.
MF: And that’s it.
JV: A tiny bit.
MF: I had someone come up to me today, and she said ‘Oh, I grew up with Gaz!’ and she said ‘I loved goth Gaz, why did they make her gamer Gaz?!’.
JV: She’s always a gamer!
MF: That’s what I said: ‘she’s always been a gamer!’
JV: She’s just changed her clothes, people get weird!
MF: People were like ‘she was so goth, I was goth Gaz too.’ People connected. I think they are right where they are supposed to be.
RS: Yeah, GIR is anchored in stupidity. He’s not going anywhere.
JV: Yeah, GIR especially didn’t change at all from the series to the movie. It’d be wrong to make him change – he’s just a dog.
MF: He wouldn’t have any progression, whatsoever.
JV: We were just talking about that – I like when a character just doesn’t learn a lesson. It’s why I like Ash from Evil Dead! Like, he doesn’t ever become nice, he doesn’t become respectful, he’s just an asshole. There’s some places where characters evolving works, but not for Zim. That’d kill the show.
MF: They have to stay right where they are.
JV: There’s episodes where they literally die at the end of the episode, and they are fine the next episode.
RS: Hail to the Zim!
MF: Right?
OR: Being here at this point a few years after Invader Zim and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, I wanted to get some perspective on where you’re at looking back at those projects. It seems we’re coming to [Dragon Con] and talking about some of those projects. Where’s your head at as you’re looking at those projects?
JV: Johnny’s been on my mind a lot more lately, just because we’ve been going in and sort of archiving the old pages, ‘cause they really were just in like garbage bags in my closet. Every time I moved, I would just – you know – and they were getting kind of damaged. So, we started scanning them. And its been years since I’ve actually read those pages.
RS: You could sell your original pages?
JV: I don’t sell the original pages. I just hang onto them. It’s alright. *laughs* I’m looking back, I’m reading it. I’m like ‘Ehhh, this is kind of embarrassing stuff, sometimes.’ But it is literally – and I was talking about this yesterday – literally like looking at high school photos. It is literally me in high school. And then, a few years after high school was when I was doing them as comics – the books.
So, it’s weird to look back at that stuff. It’s kind of crazy to think that I didn’t really have any complaints, you know, going back. I’m looking through it, I’m just like ‘[t]here’s some dodgy shit.’ *laughs* It’s interesting – I don’t know. I don’t know that I’ve got some sort of simple answers for ‘looking back and what its like.’ It’s like looking back at your own life. ‘Oh, I’m ashamed of that! And also, that’s pretty cool.’ There’s some good stuff, there’s some bad stuff.
RS: I think you’ve got to be kind of embarrassed by your work for it to be ‘you.’ You know? If you make something, and you’re not embarrassed by it, then is there something wrong with you?
JV: Not immediately! I don’t want to be embarrassed immediately! Do it later.
MF: But, it’s revealing. It’s revealing part of your life and where you were at that time of your life when you wrote that.
JV: Yeah. It was definitely a very specific time. As for Zim – that was a few years after. That was, I don’t know, it was weirder working on Zim. It was definitely the start of getting a weirder audience, which is a weird thing to think about, considering you’re going from a book about a homicidal maniac-
RS: Exactly!
JV: – to a funny show for kids. But, we talked about this on the panel – and I think it just got a much bigger audience, and you just get a lot more weirdos.
“I don’t really sit around thinking about my influence. You know what I mean? It never stops being weird. It’s nice! But its spooky to think about how stuff you did is part of someone else – I’ve got those things within me as a kid, things that I’ve loved that influence what I do. Its weird to be that to other people.”
OR: Outside of paying jobs, what do you do for a hobby – that you just relax your mind?
RS: I play Dungeons & Dragons, and things like that. I’ve played table top RPGs since I was a kid. And now I’ve been trying to design my own. So, I have a bad habit of taking every single hobby that I enjoy, and try to do it myself at some point. Like, write a novel or make a comic – which was my career before I did Zim stuff. Been a lot of tabletop RPG stuff, lately.
MF: Hobbies – I love to cook. I do, I love food, I’m like obsessed with it. I love the kitchen and I love creating, and I love the zen feeling of that. Its very relaxing to me. I love cookbooks, and I love delving into something that you can create other than using my voice or using my face or my body.
I love cooking, and I find it very therapeutic and very enlightening in a lot of ways. My husband does, too, and our son does, as well.
JV: Have you done a cookbook?
MF: No, but I write down a lot of things that I end up creating. But, and I had a book filled with all recipes, but I lost them in the fires in Los Angeles. But, it’s a good impetus to create a new one. Yeah, definitely.
JV: I wish I cooked more – I love cooking, I just sort of settled on a handful of things.
MF: As you can do!
JV: Yeah, I need to learn more. I definitely play way too many video games. Like, I love video games. I always have. But, it’s a problem – I play way too many. *laughs* I mess around with music stuff. I can’t read music. I should have studied when I was little. I like collecting music stuff. I play the drums and I can just sit with some headphones on, with an analog sync and make noises all night, and I’ll just be gone for hours. Just hours. I love sound, I love music.
MF: That’s great – you can really get lost in that world for hours and hours. Did you write the Zim ‘Bow Down, Bow Down,’ the Christmas one?
JV: The melody.
MF: And then did you write the one-
JV: ‘Chicken and rice.’
MF: ‘Chicken and rice!’
JV: Again, just the main lyrics.
MF: And then, did you write the song that Andy and I – that we did it in Florpus
JV: The ‘Skippidy Boo Boo.’ Yeah, that’s like the extent – I’ll be on my iPad and just do a loop, and I’ll hand it off to a composer: ‘[t]urn that into a thing.’ And that’s Kevin [Manthei]. But yeah, I came up with the little bit, and then Kevin turns it into a big thing.
MF: That’s very cool.
JV: Yeah.
OR: First of all, congrats on Zim taking off.
JV: I don’t even know if Zim ever took off. It crashed, and burned-
OR: They sell merchandise everywhere, and like-
JV: That’s just it. That’s what’s amazing about it – if we crashed and burned, people just kept walking into the fire, you know? And it’s decades later! There’s so many people – the fire doesn’t go out because its just being fueled by bodies!
MF: *laughs* That’s so true! To us, it feels like we crashed and burned, but that’s just such a great analogy.
RS: There’s a lot of autographs that I’ve signed this weekend – and every convention – is for little kids whose parents showed them. I think there’s even a grandpa, a father, and a child now.
JV: Did that little girl who came up to you with the green-striped gloves – the little redhead? She must have been like, eleven? She looked like a commercial for a Zim fan! This impossibly cute little kid.
MF: Her mom was like, ‘[s]he just binge watched the whole series and she’s like all in.’
JV: It’s so hard for anything to actually go away now. There’s somewhere where you can find it.
OR: One of the biggest series hits currently running that they’ve said, kind of on the record, that you’ve all been an inspiration for is Hazbin Hotel.
JV: That’s huge in a way that Zim never reached.
OR: Have you had a chance to check that out?
RS: Yeah, Richard’s on it.
MF: That’s in 2025, or came out in 2024 maybe. But do you think, if, Zim came out NOW and had the platforms and was promoted differently –
JV: I don’t think so.
RS: I think it would have had something like Zim behind it for it to not be kicked away like it was at the time.
JV: It was really interesting seeing stuff, after all this time, that exists – the people behind it were clearly fans of the thing. I can think of a couple of things. And it’s weird, it’s just weird! I don’t really sit around thinking about my influence. You know what I mean? It never stops being weird. It’s nice! But it’s spooky to think about how stuff you did is part of someone else – I’ve got those things within me as a kid, things that I’ve loved that influence what I do. It’s weird to be that to other people. I don’t like it – it’s stealing my power!
MF: *laughs* Think of it as imparting your power to everyone! You’re sharing it.
OR: To follow up on that – one of the biggest surprises for me was when you voiced Raz’s Archetype in Psychonauts 2.
RS: Yes.
OR: It felt like a return to Invader Zim between you Richard Horvitz, who played Raz in that game. Can you talk a bit about how you were brought on board with that game, and was this homage to Invader Zim – because I assume it was deliberate- intended from the outset?
RS: Richard is Resputin – Raz – in Psychonauts 1, and when they did Psychonauts 2, they had this paper doll version of his character that is basically a tool that you send out to do things, and they needed a voice. And Richard just said ‘well, bring in Ricky, and make it sound like GIR.’
And this may be strange for you to see-
JV: That was weird. That was the weirdest thing to see.
RS: I didn’t know that they wanted me to just do a GIR imitation when I was brought in. They were like, ‘[w]e’re going to do this character,’ and I went ‘[g]reat!’ And so I see the script, because when you do video games, you do them alone – and just like a big spreadsheet of dialogue that a loot of is ‘[o]uch! Oooo! Ahhh! Eeee! Oooo!’ And then, ‘[o]h no, look out!’ And every time I did something, they were like ‘[w]ell, can you do it a little more cuter like you do with GIR?’
JV: ‘Can you just do GIR.’
RS: Yeah. ‘Can you do GIR.’ And I love those guys at [Double] Fine, they’re really wonderful.
JV: That’s Tim [Schafer].
RS: Yeah, Tim – he’s great. But then they came out and actually pitched it up, so it sounds like GIR.
JV: That’s the thing I’ve noticed – it’s nice when someone is a fan of the show and then [they’re] working on their own thing. A lot of the time, it’s just, you know, fan of Zim, so they’ll hire Kevin [Manthei] to do music, they’ll get the characters as characters in their game or show, and a lot of the time, the direction just seems to be: ‘[d]o Zim.’
MF: Yeah.
JV: Which is…odd. Again, it’s weird stuff! Because to me, all of that is like, that’s what I do. That’s the kind of thing that I like. That’s how I would direct the voices. And like, those are the things that I liked about their voices. So, to me, it’s my personality – this is the kind of thing. And it’s just weird when someone else’s direction is ‘[d]o what he wanted you to do. Do the thing.’ And I’m like: ‘[f]uck you, do your own thing! Tell them to do a different voice goddamit!’
MF: You know, I had an experience like that – I don’t think I can share all the details. But, similar story – I was asked to come in an audition for something. And it was ‘[c]an you do this character as Gaz?’
So, I did it, and it wasn’t the take that I would have done – I had a little different take that I wanted to do. ‘No, just do Gaz.’ And I was like, ‘[y]ou know, I think Gaz only works in ‘our’ realm, as all of our characters do.’ You can have something similar, but it just didn’t work – and I didn’t get the job. I originally did a take where I did my thoughts on it where it was a little flavor on what Gaz would be with a little something else too.
But, they said ‘[c]an you do this Gaz, just for fun?’ and the creator was a huge fan and she really wanted to hear Gaz as it. But, after the audition, I thought ‘[u]h, I don’t think it works. I just don’t think it worked as the character. Gaz works in ‘this’ world. But I wouldn’t put her in other worlds.’
OR: Speaking of worlds: if you guys could do a crossover with any other animated show, what show would it be and why?
JV: Plague Dogs, maybe? That would be fun. A Zim episode of Plague Dogs.
RS: So it’s a crossover…
JV: GIR is hanging out with the Plague Dogs! He’s made new friends, you know!
MF: Oh my God, I would see it. I can’t think of anything but something so sugary, saccharine-y, and then bring the Zim world into that world and let it be a complete clash.
JV: Or, just insert GIR into Plague Dogs.
MF: *laughs* That’s it!
JV: He’s just always there, you know! When that farmer and hunter blows his head off, you know, you just cut to the rifle in GIR’s hands. Plague Dogs, its not a fun movie. I don’t know if you’ve seen it – but its like from the 70s, 80s.
RS: I think it’s the same studio that did Watership Down.
JV: Yeah, real ‘fun,’
RS: You weren’t depressed enough with the first one!
JV: Immediately, that one dog – because it’s a bunch of dogs that’ve escaped from like, a medical lab – that one dog finds that nice hunter guy: ‘oh, where did you come from?’ and the dog accidentally sets the dude’s shotgun off and blows the farmer’s face off! I just remember going: ‘[w]hat is this?!’ *laughs*
RS: Could do a crossover with Grave of the Fireflies.
JV: GIR’s just back there –
RS: – with the children while they’re starving.
JV: He’s having a great ol’ time, though! GIR doesn’t care about depressing shows.
Please return tomorrow for Part Two of this interview!
Who is your favorite character in Invader Zim?
Would you like to see more episodes of the show?
Let us know in the comments below!
