The Complete C Comics

“C Comics was produced by Brainard and a repertory of friends just prior to the underground newspaper comics that emerged later in the 1960s. It was borne of a counter-art world, expressive and eccentric art and literary downtown experience at the time … The work is fascinating for what was on the minds of these soon-to-become established and canonical writers.” —Steven Heller, Print “For a long time, we’ve taken for granted the permeability between high and low culture. The Complete C Comics documents an instance when those barriers began dissolving, a bellwether moment when poets who weren’t supposed to versify on cartoons—and artists who weren’t expected to draw inspiration from Jughead, but Masaccio—did just that.” —Albert Mobilio, 4Columns “Brainard had the touch. He fought with self-doubt but his line never wavered. His mise-en-page was flawless … He was very social, loved having friends. So what could be more natural than to throw a party on the page? In C Comics he supplies the decor, the ambience, the dice, the game board; his invitees bring music and intoxicants. The party has been nonstop fun for sixty years.” —Lucy Sante, The New York Review of Books“Conceptual art? Fascinating prank? A piss-take on comics? The Complete C Comics, an experimental work from the 1960s, illustrated by Joe Brainard in collaboration with several poets, writers and fellow artists, is all of the above and more … [Brainard’s] deconstruction of what comics were (and are) remains daring, risk-taking and humorous. This handsome tall hardcover gives this work, first published as chapbooks in the mid-1960s, a regal place in comics history.” —Frank M. Young, The Comics Journal

Joe Brainard (1942-1994) was a visual artist and writer. Among his books are the classic and widely loved I Remember, Collected Writings, and many shorter volumes. His paintings, assemblages, and collages are in many private and public collections, such as those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Bill Kartalopoulos is a comics scholar, educator, curator, and editor. He is the Programming Director for the MoCCA Arts Festival and is a member of the organizing committee for the New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium. He has worked as an assistant to Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman and as the Series Editor for the #1 New York Times-bestselling Best American Comics series. He teaches graduate level courses about comics at Washington University in St. Louis, the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and the Universite de Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France. He is currently finishing a book about comics, forthcoming from Princeton University Press.

Ron Padgett is a poet, teacher, editor, and translator. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Great Balls of Fire, Collected Poems, and Pink Dust (NYRB Poets). He has translated the poetry of Guillaume Apollinaire (Zone- Selected Poems) and Blaise Cendrars (Complete Poems), and has authored memoirs of Joe Brainard, Ted Berrigan, and Dick Gallup, and a biography of his father, Wayne Padgett.