La Cinquième Couche
| Status | Active |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1993 |
| Founder | Xavier Löwenthal and others |
| Country of origin | Belgium |
| Headquarters location | Brussels |
| Key people | William Henne, Xavier Löwenthal |
| Publication types | Comics |
| Nonfiction topics | Alternative comics, conceptual comics |
| Imprints | F., Extracteur, Écritures, Essaim, Point métal |
| Official website | 5c |
La Cinquième Couche (French: [la sɛ̃kjɛm kuʃ]; lit. "the fifth layer"), also known as 5c, is a Belgian independent comics publisher based in Brussels. Founded in 1993 by students from the comics workshop of the Institut Saint-Luc, it operates since 1999 as a formal publishing house. It is currently directed by William Henne and Xavier Löwenthal. Its catalogue of over 110 titles, by some sixty authors from more than ten countries, is marked by a consistent tendency toward conceptual and experimental comics — works the press itself calls Conceptual Comics (la bande dessinée spéculative).