GROUP COMIC EXHIBITION
Curated by Austin Yi
Opening Reception:
Saturday, February 21st
6-9pm
At
Face Guts
4136 Verdugo Road
Los Angeles, CA 90065
On view February 21st - March 21st
All press and purchase inquiries to info@faceguts.com
FEATURING
Sammy Harkham
SHOW STATEMENT
In times saturated with dread, the body insists on its own aliveness. The erotic impulse, not as mere sexuality but as vital force, as Esther Perel describes it, emerges precisely when everything feels deadened.
This is the comedic impulse too: to laugh at what horrifies us, to find the aperture in the wall.
Comics have always known something the rest of the world is only now catching up to: that sequential boxes filled with pictures and words might be the most efficient technology we have for processing reality.
For decades, comics were dismissed as juvenile, disposable, too direct, too vulgar, too much. Meanwhile, they quietly became the grammar of how we communicate. Every meme, every instructional diagram, every storyboard that shapes what we watch and buy traces back to the comic panel's simple genius: this happened, then this, now feel something about it.
The five artists in this exhibition - Sammy Harkham, Seosie Kim, Ron Rege Jr, Johnny Ryan, and Katie Skelly - each offer a different survival strategy. Their works are examples of how to go about metabolizing experience, how to find the shape of a feeling and box it in ink. Some use humor as a weapon, some use beauty as a shield. Some zoom in so close to human awkwardness you can't look away; others explode into formal experiments that mirror how fractured everything feels.
Outside these pine walls, the world hands us an endless stream of heavy shit: crises, heartbreaks, absurdities, the grinding mundane.
These are works of confrontation. They meet heaviness with the body's insistence on pleasure, meaning, & connection however twisted or tender that insistence becomes. In a moment that asks us to look away, these artists look directly, and in looking, transform. It would be remiss to suggest that these works offer any kind of solution. But what they do offer is what art has always offered when the world contracts: a way to feel more, not less. To stay awake. To find, against all odds, the generative in the unbearable.
THE ARTISTS
Sammy Harkham
(b. 1980) is a Los Angeles–raised cartoonist and editor known for the influential anthology series Kramers Ergot and his long-running comic Crickets. His work often explores artistic ambition, family life, and the messy underbelly of culture, culminating in his acclaimed graphic novel Blood of the Virgin, published in 2023, which was named by The New York Times as a graphic novel of the year.
Seosie Kim
is an artist, cartoonist, and storyboard artist known for her work on Adventure Time and other animated series, as well as her slice-of-life comics and character-driven illustrations. She released the comic collection Cat Person with Koyama Press and has continued to develop personal work that highlights her distinctive, emotionally observant drawing style. Originally trained in animation, she now lives in Los Angeles, balancing studio storyboard work with her own comics and gallery projects.
(b. 1969, Quincy, Massachusetts) is an American alternative cartoonist and musician celebrated for visionary works like Skibber Bee Bye, The Cartoon Utopia, and Halcyon. His intricate, mystical comics have appeared in influential anthologies such as Kramers Ergot and been published internationally, while his illustrations have run in outlets including The New York Times. Regé has also performed and recorded with bands including Swirlies, Lavender Diamond, and Yes Girls, reflecting his deep involvement in DIY music and art scenes.
(b. 1970, Boston) is an American cartoonist and writer known for his transgressive alternative comics and confrontational sense of humor. He first gained attention in the 1990s with his self-published series Angry Youth Comix, later published by Fantagraphics, and has since created the ultra-violent sci-fi saga Prison Pit. Ryan has also worked extensively in animation, co-creating Nickelodeon’s Pig Goat Banana Cricket and serving as a writer and story editor on Looney Tunes Cartoons and other projects.
is an American cartoonist and illustrator whose stylish, genre-bending graphic novels include Heaven, Nurse Nurse, My Pretty Vampire, Maids, and The Agency. Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and trained in art history, she creates comics that merge pop aesthetics with horror, erotica, and manga influences. Skelly also writes and lectures about comics, contributing criticism and talks for institutions such as The Comics Journal and various universities.
THE CURATOR
Austin Yi
(b. 1994, Bakersfield, California) used to be a window washer yet finds himself returning to panes & panels for laffs & introspection. He can be found doodling in the back of Home Guts or meandering somewhere in Silverlake or Altadena.