215 x 280mm, 48 pages, full colour printing, perfect bound, 2013

One of a bunch of beautiful books from a gallery and artspace we admire very much, Sophia Jacob, of Baltimore. Here, artists Chase Biado, Zoë Clark team up with their curator of the show at Sophia Jacob, Sam Korman to present The Absolute Comic...

For some misdeed or other, Pierrot had in the end to be guillo­tined. Why the guillotine rather than the gallows, in the land of Albion? I do not know; presumably to lead up to what we were to see next. Anyway, there it was, the engine of death, there, set up on the French boards, which were markedly surprised at this ro­mantic novelty. After struggling and bellowing like an ox that scents the slaughter-house, at last Pierrot bowed to his fate. His head was severed from his neck – a great red and white head, which rolled nois­ily to rest in front of the prompter's box, showing the bleeding disk of the neck, the split vertebrae and all the details of a piece of butcher's meat just dressed for the counter. And then, all of a sudden, the de­capitated trunk, moved by its irresistible obsession with theft, jumped to its feet, triumphantly 'lifted' its own head as though it was a ham or a bottle of wine, and, with far more circumspection than the great St. Denis, proceeded to stuff it into its pocket!

- Charles Baudelaire, “On The Essence of Laughter” [1855]

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