'Johnny Jihad'

NBM, 2003, 80 pages

Written and Illustrated by Ryan Inzana


John Sendel is a typical teenager. The kind that snap and would start shooting at their school. He is part of a generation reared by television in the nineties with absentee or loveless parents, cynical, and willing to wield the impetuousness of youth in a self-destructive manner. But Johnny stumbles onto fundamentalist Islam through his friend Salim, and finds a new outlet to channel his rebellious angst. He cannot but admire these people with an actual purpose in life and something to believe in. The facets of Johnny's humdrum existence in suburbia begin to fade, his life now has a purpose: jihad. However, the deeper he gets enmeshed, the more frightening the road becomes with no possibility of return. When the CIA gets hold of him, things take an ugly turn. Based on true facts of training camps run in the U.S. and inspired by the stories of John Walker Lindh and others. Chillingly real and hotly topical.