Spanish cartoonist Joan Cornellà combines black humor and extreme discomfort, most famously in his wordless, six-panel comics. Cornellà‘s work deals in mutilation and disfigurement, sadistic or oblivious violence, the alienation of modernity and a total disregard for human life. (I know. It doesn’t sound funny, but trust me.) Cornellà‘s aesthetic runs completely counterintuitive to his themes—his colors are lovely and soothing, and his human figures are glassy-eyed and friendly, as if they walked out of a children’s cartoon.

Uncomfortable laughter aside, these beautiful little comics really bear the mark of Cornellà‘s fine arts training. His book Mox Nox is fantastic by the way, especially since the high-resolution images really let you see the texture of paper and pigment. It lets you really embrace the depth of that head-wound.