Joe Brainard’s comic-book collaborations with New York School poets

“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 THE COMPLETE C COMICS Joe Brainard Foreword by Ron Padgett Essay by Bill Kartalopoulos In the creative hotbed of 1960s New York, Joe Brainard was a whirlwind. He was a maker of paintings, assemblages, collages, book covers, poetry-reading flyers, and more. But some of his most exciting work was done with his friends. In 1964, the twenty-two-year-old Brainard turned his talents to rewiring the lowly comic book form into something new and surprising. He invited his friends Frank O’Hara, Ted Berrigan, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Peter Schjeldahl, Barbara Guest, Ron Padgett, and others—all of them New York School poets—to collaborate with him on comics that they would write and he would draw. The results were unlike any comics seen before. Previously available only on the rare-book market but available here under one cover for the first time, the two issues of C Comics still feel as fresh as when the first page rolled off the mimeograph machine more than sixty years ago. Brainard’s energetic line and joyful humor charge across every page, illustrating O’Hara's recasting of a cowboy as a mash-note-writing lover, Padgett’s experiments with traditional cartoon sound effects, cameos by Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy, and heaps of Dadaesque delights. This edition includes a foreword from Padgett and an essay by comics historian Bill Kartalopolous, who details the creation (and creators) of C Comics. For three days only, The Complete C Comics is available at 25% off. BUY THE BOOK You are receiving this message because you signed up for email newsletters from NYRB. You can choose the types of mailings you wish to receive: Update preferences   New York Review Books 207 East 32nd Street New York, NY 10016-6305 Not a subscriber? Sign up for our newsletter here. Unsubscribe