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The Real Johnny Ryan
John F. Ryan IV was born in Boston, MA on November 30, 1970. As a child, he had a Prince Valiant hairdo, orthopedic shoes, and was occasionally chased with BB guns by neighborhood bullies. His teen years were spent doing homework and watching "Night Flight". He studied English Literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he had no girlfriends to distract him from making the Dean's List every year. The disgruntled, post-collegiate Johnny began drawing comics and sending them to his friends, who encouraged him to go legit with his badly scrawled (yet hilarious) artwork.
Over the next few years, he honed his craft in his self-published title Angry Youth Comix, which was picked up by Fantagraphics Books in 2000. There have been 14 issues of AYC since, as well as three book collections (Portajohnny and What're You Lookin' At?! and Johnny Ryan's XXX Scumbag Party) . AYC has earned multiple Ignatz, Harvey, and Eisner nominations in the years since. Johnny was also a guest of the Festival International des Bande Dessinee in Angouleme, France in 2002 and had artwork featured in the festival's accompanying gallery show. His comics are published in Spain by La Cupula, and have been reprinted in Brazil as well.
Johnny is also the creator of a weekly comic strip, "Blecky Yuckerella". So far there have been 3 collections: "Blecky Yuckerella", "Back In Bleck" & "Comics Are For Idiots", all published by Fantagraphics.
Johnny's unmistakable and hilarious drawings have appeared in VICE, MAD, LA Weekly, National Geographic Kids, Hustler, Cool & Strange Music, The Stranger, and elsewhere. His artwork appears in nearly every issue of Nickelodeon magazine, wherein he has also collaborated with acclaimed artist Dave Cooper under the pen name "Hector Mumbly". The two also collaborated on a "Wonder Woman vs. Super Girl" story for the DC Comics anthology Bizarro. He also collaborated with Peter Bagge in both AYC and Bagge's Hate Annual, in addition to penciling and inking two stories for his DC series Sweatshop. Johnny has also done work for clients such as Nobleworks greetings cards, Rhino Records, and FOX television.
And there have been two popular collections of Johnny's sketchbook comics The Comic Book Holocaust and Klassic Komix Klub, both published by Buenaventura Press.
Johnny currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jenny and their two cats, Kang and Kodos and a dog Dizzy. In September 2005, he was featured in Rolling Stone's annual HOT LIST issue.
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