Asylum Earth

In Asylum Earth, nothing is quite as it seems. Toulouse-Lautrec shares a room with El Greco in "Art Heaven," while back among the living, an irate "Letter to the Editor" demands that someone go in and finish "all those impressionist paintings--why leave just an impression?" Irreverent and brilliantly funny, Bragg brings us a view of his own special reality--and sheds new light on what we know of our own. Witticisms, satire, and irony abound, and no profession or institution escapes Bragg's sharp eye. Often compared to Daumier, Nast, and Bosch, Bragg is a master of observation. Once our human frailties are scrutinized by his myopic gaze, we may never see ourselves in quite the same way again! Illustrated throughout with Bragg?s paintings and etchings.

Charles Bragg is a Missouri-born, New York-reared, California-based artist and author, who spent his early life travelling the circuit with his actor parents. ("They were personally responsible for the death of Vaudeville...")

Bragg has received worldwide recognition for his satirical artistic studies of mankind and the environment. He has held solo exhibitions from San Francisco to Vienna, New York to Munich, Philadelphia to Honolulu. He has created commissions for Playboy, Mother Jones, and the New York Times magazines, won several national awards for his work, and been the subject of a PBS documentary, "Charles Bragg - One of a Kind."

For someone who has obviously never read a book, Charles Bragg certainly knows how to write one! Utterly charming and surprisingly affordable! - Martin Mull

They say Beethoven was so deaf that he thought he was a painter. Charles Bragg is a painter with a great sense of humor. He has written the kind of book that once you put it down, you just can't pick it up again. This, folks, is a very funny book. - Pat McCormick

We knew Charles Bragg could draw with a scalpel. Now we know he writes with one too. This book is funny, outrageous, insulting, provocative, educational, and so damned politically incorrect, I can't believe it. But, where else would I get an aphorism with such valuable advice as "I drink no wine until I am at room temperature"? - Richard B. Stolley Senior Editorial Advisor, Time, Inc.

Charles Bragg's Asylum Earth is the perfect book to give to a shut-in who you know will never get well. But if he does, he'll probably take it with him - so you'd better get a copy of this hilarious book for yourself. - Jonathan Winters

Asylum Earth is dazzling and puzzling - great bits of Braggadocio. - Ralph Nader

I think I loved Asylum Earth. But I was laughing so hard while I was reading it, I can't be sure. - Robert Altman

There ought to be a law against humor this outrageous, but Charles Bragg could probably beat the rap with an insanity plea! We're talking felony humor here. - Joseph Wambaugh

I love it! Charles Bragg is to literature what Mother Teresa is to mud wrestling. It's difficult to say anything nasty about a man whose art I love as much as his absurd political philosophy. - George Schlatter Comedy Hall of Fame