La Cinquième Couche
La Cinquième Couche, also known as 5c, is a Brussels-based Belgian independent publisher specializing in conceptual and experimental comics.
Last updated August 31, 2026
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Overview
La Cinquième Couche, commonly abbreviated as 5c, is a Belgian independent comics publisher based in Brussels. It began in 1993 as an informal collective formed by students from the comics workshop at Institut Saint-Luc. The group initially produced a fanzine and self-published work by its members before reorganizing around 1999 as a formal publishing house. William Henne, who had already been publishing independently, joined the collective in 1998. By the 2010s, Henne and Xavier Löwenthal had become the press's principal co-directors. The name, which translates as “the fifth layer,” alludes humorously to art critic Clement Greenberg's model of modernism. The title suggests a hypothetical stage beyond an established artistic canon and reflects the publisher's willingness to test the boundaries of comics as a medium. 5c does not present itself as following a narrowly codified programme. Instead, its stated editorial position treats comics as a contemporary art form with an open and porous relationship to literature, performance, music, installation, visual art, film, photography, design, and other practices. Despite that deliberate openness, the catalogue has a recognizable identity. The publisher frequently uses the term “conceptual comics” or bande dessinée spéculative for works organized around a formal, philosophical, poetic, ludic, or self-referential device. Its books may employ appropriation, détournement, structural constraints, inverted or fragmented narratives, abstraction, dissonance between text and image, literary imposture, or interventions in the physical format of the book. These techniques are generally intended not as empty formal games but as ways of renewing political, autobiographical, historical, social, or philosophical subjects. The catalogue has included more than 110 titles and approximately sixty authors from Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Greece, Finland, the United States, South Korea, and elsewhere. Its publishing structure has included several collections: F. for fiction and narrative, Extracteur for longer experimental works, Écritures for contemporary literature, Essaim for conceptual and appropriative projects, and Point métal for shorter publications. The press also incorporated the journal Écritures between 2004 and 2007 and published Soldes, Fins de Séries from 2010 to 2013. 5c is particularly associated with projects that make the act of publishing itself part of the artwork. Ilan Manouach's Katz generated a legal dispute because it reworked imagery from Art Spiegelman's Maus; the subsequent MetaKatz documented the controversy and the destruction of the remaining copies. Other notable experiments include Noirs, which alters the chromatic logic of a Smurfs story, Blanco, a completely blank hardcover album, and books that frame existing or technically inaccessible material as conceptual objects. The press has also published more conventional experimental narratives and literary works, maintaining a catalogue that combines authorship, criticism, material design, and institutional provocation. Since 2023, Henne and Löwenthal have been developing an editorial project around the posthumous drawings of Chaïm Kaliski, a Brussels artist and survivor of the Nazi occupation. The ongoing series assembles thousands of drawings concerning the fate of Brussels' Jewish community during the Holocaust. Through this project and its wider catalogue, La Cinquième Couche occupies a distinctive position between independent comics publishing, artists' books, contemporary art, and experimental literature.
History
La Cinquième Couche was created in Brussels in 1993 by students connected with the comics workshop at Institut Saint-Luc. The founding circle included Damien Rocour, Sarah Masson, Michel Squarci, Sibylle Loof, Olivier Fable, Vincent Dutreuil, Nicholas Wood, Sébastien Kempenaers, Christophe Poot, Renaud De Heyn, and Xavier Löwenthal. In its initial phase, the organization functioned as an informal collective and issued a fanzine under the name La Cinquième Couche. Members primarily self-published their own work rather than operating as a conventional commercial press. The name refers playfully to Clement Greenberg's account of successive stages of modernism. By imagining a fifth layer beyond the established four, the collective signalled an interest in questioning artistic categories and inherited conventions. Around 1999, the group formalized its activities as a publishing house. William Henne, who had been publishing independently since 1994, joined in 1998 and later became, with Löwenthal, one of the press's principal directors. The publisher's editorial identity developed around the proposition that comics should be treated as a contemporary art form rather than confined to established genre or commercial formulas. 5c has not adopted a rigid official manifesto. Its catalogue nevertheless shows a sustained interest in speculative or conceptual comics: works in which a rule, theoretical proposition, appropriation, material intervention, or unusual relation between words and images determines the reading experience. The press has published creators whose practices also include theatre, performance, installation, music, painting, sculpture, graphic design, screen printing, animation, video, photography, and literature. Its catalogue is divided into several collections. F. serves as the principal fiction and narrative line; Extracteur accommodates longer and more formally demanding projects; Écritures covers contemporary literature; Essaim is associated with conceptual and appropriative work; and Point métal is used for shorter formats. Écritures was incorporated into the catalogue from 2004 to 2007, while the journal Soldes, Fins de Séries, created by Marc Borgers and Jean-Louis Sbille, was published by 5c from 2010 to 2013. The press became especially visible through books that made formal or institutional questions inseparable from their content. In 2009 it published 1h25, attributed to the supposedly autobiographical author Judith Forest. The following year the press revealed that Forest was fictional and that the project had been created by Henne, Löwenthal, and Thomas Boivin. The exercise challenged assumptions about autobiographical authenticity and genre authority. A second volume, Momon, appeared in 2011. In 2011–2012, Ilan Manouach's Katz produced a more direct legal controversy. The work altered every character in Maus by giving them a cat's head, thereby disrupting the source work's predator-and-prey allegory. After the book's presentation at Angoulême, the rights-holder for Maus brought proceedings against the publisher. Because litigation costs were unsustainable, 5c settled out of court and destroyed the copies that remained. MetaKatz, published in 2013, turned the episode into a subject of documentation and criticism. Other projects extended the press's interest in the book as a conceptual object. Noirs reprinted a Smurfs story while replacing all inks with cyan, Blanco removed all printed content from a hardcover album, and Abrégé de bande dessinée franco-belge recombined recognizable elements of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. Astro Boy #6 framed an existing Tezuka volume as a Marxist ready-made. In 2021, The Dark Knight Returns Book One presented raw PostScript source code rather than a readable reproduction of the Frank Miller comic, requiring the reader to reconstruct the file manually. By 2016, the catalogue exceeded 110 titles and represented roughly sixty authors from more than ten countries. The press's work has received attention from specialist comics and contemporary-art publications and has been archived by UbuWeb. Since 2023, Henne and Löwenthal have been editing a major project based on the drawings of Chaïm Kaliski, a self-taught Brussels artist and survivor of the Nazi occupation. Kaliski created more than 6,000 drawings about the fate of Brussels' Jewish community during the Holocaust. The project includes Jim d'Etterbeek, published in 2024, with later volumes planned around Dossin, the genocide of Europe's Jews, and Auschwitz.
- 2023
Chaïm Kaliski project begins
[1]5c begins an ongoing editorial project devoted to Kaliski's Holocaust-related drawings.
- 2012
Katz legal dispute
[1]The publisher settles a rights dispute concerning Ilan Manouach's appropriative Katz and destroys remaining copies.
- 2004
Écritures enters the catalogue
[1]The contemporary literature journal Écritures is incorporated into the publisher's catalogue.
- 1999
Formal publishing house established
[1]The informal collective restructures as a formal publishing operation.
- 1998
William Henne joins the collective
[1]Independent publisher William Henne becomes involved with the group.
- 1993
Collective founded in Brussels
[1]Students from the Institut Saint-Luc comics workshop establish La Cinquième Couche and begin issuing a fanzine.
Products and positioning
An independent, art-oriented comics publisher positioned at the intersection of avant-garde bande dessinée, conceptual art, artists' books, contemporary literature, and publishing experimentation.
Conceptual comics · 2012
Katz
Ilan Manouach's appropriative intervention reworks Maus by replacing the heads of all characters with cat heads. The alteration removes the source work's differentiated animal allegory and makes the mechanics of representation its central subject. The book was presented at Angoulême in 2012 and later became the focus of a rights dispute.
Critical anthology · 2013
MetaKatz
MetaKatz documents the Katz episode through legal materials, press responses, and critical essays. It also includes a vinyl recording connected with the destruction of the remaining Katz copies, turning the controversy into an archive of publishing, copyright, and conceptual-art questions.
Conceptual comics · 2014
Noirs
This Ilan Manouach project reproduces the structure and physical characteristics of a Smurfs story while replacing every printing plate with cyan. By making all Smurfs visually alike, it removes the chromatic distinction that drives the original narrative and exposes the ideological work performed by color.
Artists' book · 2015
Blanco
A 48-page hardcover album whose pages are entirely blank. Blanco preserves the format, binding, and physical expectations of a printed comic while withholding its images and text, asking where the identity of a comics book resides.
Conceptual comics · 2018
Abrégé de bande dessinée franco-belge
A graphic mash-up that condenses and recombines recognizable imagery from the Franco-Belgian comics tradition into a single conceptual publication. The work treats the canon as a field of reusable signs and examines how familiarity is produced through repetition and rearrangement.
Ready-made publication · 2020
Astro Boy #6
5c's edition of an existing Astro Boy volume frames the serial comic as a cultural commodity and a conceptual ready-made. The publishing gesture, rather than a conventional rewrite or adaptation, supplies the principal interpretive intervention.
Experimental digital-book concept · 2021
The Dark Knight Returns Book One
This publication presents raw PostScript source code for a PDF associated with Frank Miller's comic instead of a readable reproduction. The reader is instructed to reconstruct the file manually, making digital mediation, technical labor, and the promise of frictionless e-books part of the work.
Historical graphic archive · 2024
Jim d'Etterbeek
The first identified volume in 5c's ongoing project devoted to Chaïm Kaliski's drawings about Brussels' Jewish community and the Holocaust. It forms part of a planned series based on Kaliski's posthumous body of more than 6,000 drawings.
Controversies
2012
Katz copyright dispute
Flammarion, the French rights-holder for Maus, initiated legal proceedings over Ilan Manouach's Katz. La Cinquième Couche reached an out-of-court settlement and destroyed the remaining copies because it could not sustain prolonged litigation costs.
2010
Judith Forest literary hoax revealed
5c disclosed that Judith Forest, presented as the author of the autobiographical comic 1h25, was a fictional identity created by William Henne, Xavier Löwenthal, and Thomas Boivin. The project was intended to question assumptions about authenticity and autobiography in comics rather than to represent a conventional author biography.
Brand decisions
2023
Launch the Chaïm Kaliski editorial projectStrategyBackground
Kaliski left a large posthumous archive of drawings about Brussels' Jewish community and the Holocaust.
Action taken
William Henne and Xavier Löwenthal began editing the drawings into a continuing series of books.
Aftermath
Jim d'Etterbeek appeared in 2024, with additional volumes planned for subsequent years.
2012
Settle the Katz dispute and destroy remaining copiesOtherBackground
The publisher faced legal proceedings concerning an appropriative work based on Maus and lacked the resources for extended litigation.
Action taken
5c reached an out-of-court settlement and destroyed the copies still in its possession.
Aftermath
The episode became the subject of MetaKatz, which preserved and analyzed the legal and cultural controversy.
1999
Convert the collective into a formal pressStrategyBackground
The organization had operated for several years as a student-originated self-publishing collective.
Action taken
It reorganized as a publishing house and expanded beyond publishing only members' work.
Aftermath
The change enabled a broader catalogue and the publication of authors from multiple countries and artistic disciplines.
Recent events
- 2024
Jim d'Etterbeek begins the Chaïm Kaliski publication series[1]
Product launch
The first identified volume in the Kaliski project was published in June 2024.
- 2023
La Cinquième Couche develops a Chaïm Kaliski series[1]
Product launch · Other
William Henne and Xavier Löwenthal began developing an ongoing series devoted to the posthumous drawings of Brussels artist Chaïm Kaliski and his documentation of the Jewish community during the Holocaust.
- 2013
MetaKatz documents the Katz controversy[1]
Product launch · Lawsuit
The publisher released MetaKatz, an anthology examining the Katz dispute, its legal documents, press coverage, and the destruction of the book's remaining copies.
- 2012
La Cinquième Couche publishes Katz and faces legal action[1]
Lawsuit · Other
Ilan Manouach's Katz, an appropriative reworking of imagery from Maus, was presented at the Angoulême International Comics Festival before the rights-holder initiated legal proceedings. La Cinquième Couche later reached an out-of-court settlement and destroyed the remaining copies.
Sources2 sources
Cite this profile: Cite the canonical profile. /brand-wiki/la-cinquième-couche · Editorial policy · How profiles are compiled