‘Pictures for Sad Children’ Webcomic Creator Holds Equally Depressing Art Show

John Campbell's webcomic "Pictures for Sad Children" is largely defined by its spare, minimalist drawing, and yes, a deep, pervading sense of ineluctable sadness that lingers long after you've finished the comic and yet somehow compels you to return. Campbell held his first art show over the weekend, and judging from the pictures, it was exactly what you would expect: incredibly depressing and fascinating. Installations included a chair facing a hanging board that read "DO NOT FORGET YOU ARE GOING TO DIE," and another where rows of small black cardboard figures leaped off a cliff and shattered on a crate below.

A pair of cushions on a bench titled "two brothers who are not quite friends" actually turned Campbell and his brother into an art installation themselves. "This is where my older brother and i sat for the duration of the show," said Campbell on his Tumblr. "He told me about the time my father attacked him in the night and he found himself incapable of fighting back. I told him about the hallucinations i had as a child." Check more pictures from the show -- which seems to do a great job of adapting Campbell's work to other media -- after the jump.