Johnny Ryan: Horrorshow Redux

Cartoonist Johnny Ryan is one of the most celebrated artists of the Punk x Comix crossover movement. He is the creator of the cult favorite Angry Youth Comics, a co-creator of the Nickelodeon series Pig Boat Banana Cricket, and was the story editor of Warner’s mid-2010s reboot of Looney Tunes, and regular contributor to Vice for over a decade. His aim is generally an attempt to be as shocking and politically incorrect as possible.

Johnny Ryan (b. 1970) was born in Boston and studied English Lit at UMASS Amhearst. From 1994 to 1998 he began self publishing Angry Youth Comix, which got him on the radar of celebrated Hate author, Peter Bagge and his Fantagraphics publisher, Eric Reynolds –who took over publication of Ryan’s seminal comix from the second volume onward. Ryan’s illustrations have appeared in MAD, LA Weekly, National Geographic Kids, Hustler Magazine, The Stranger, Rolling Stone and elsewhere. Ryan has also done greetings cards, album covers and even animation for Fox TV. His comics have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and French. He has been nominated for multiple Ignatz, Harvey and Eisner Awards.

Under the pen name “Hector Mumbly”, Ryan’s comics appeared in nearly every issue of Nickelodeon Magazine, which is a great example of the subversive duality of Ryan’s work. While working on a children’s magazine in the daytime, Johnny’s personal work became increasingly more intentionally offensive, embracing the aesthetic of infamous Florida illustrator, Mike Diana, whose own graphic cartooning landed him on the business end of the highest profile first amendment defense loss in the history of American jurisprudence. One could argue that Ryan’s drawings are more tonally satirical but subjectively indistinguishable from Diana’s (and for this reason we will not be shipping any of the pieces in this show to Florida). 

The affordable, hand-drawn, mini-masterpieces in this exhibition come from a couple of Sold Out 2010 exhibitions, including collaborations with Мишка in New York and Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles and a personal collaboration with Pepe the Frog creator, Matt Furie. These commercially-packaged, Vending Machine type artworks have been in the collection of the original patron until now.