Category: book launch

Rosheim Returns!

FISHSLICES

Black Scat Books is proud to bring you this long out of print collection of poetry by the founder and editor of the legendary avant-garde press, Obscure Publications.

Paul Rosheim founded Obscure Publications in 2000 and for ten years published an exquisite series of extremely limited edition chapbooks. OP boasted an astonishing roster of avant-garde writers from Europe and America. The list included books by Raymond Queneau, Eric Basso, Peter Ruric (Paul Cain), Harry Mathews, Tom Whalen, Terry Southern, Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, Harold Jaffe, Opal Louis Nations, Georges Perec, Barbara Wright and many others.

Rosheim launched his series with Fishslices and later issued an expanded second edition. This Black Scat Classic Interim Edition is a reprint of the latter volume and includes illustrations. The author also provides an extended introduction with a fascinating history of the press.

Although relatively few copies of Fishslices were produced, the little book soon gathered a reputation among those fortunate enough to have received a copy, and it has long been sought after by collectors.

We invite you to discover this unique little collection.

CLICK HERE to order a copy.

Oulipo Pornobongo 3. The doors are open. . .

doors

Pleased to announce the 29th volume in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series: OULIPO PORNOBONGO 3; ANTHOLOGY OF EROTIC WORDPLAY.

phongo_sml

Featuring constrained works by Maria Schurr, Tom La Farge, Paulo Brito, Lucy Selleck, Doug Skinner, Paul Forristal, Ellen Nations, and Norman Conquest.

A titillating anthology—provocative, funny, and uncommonly satisfying.

You can order a copy in print ($15) or the digital edition ($5.25) by clicking HERE.
op3logo

Black Scat Review #8 —Seduction— Now Available!

BSR8

Here’s the one we know you’ve been waiting for. It features seductive works by Suzanne Burns, Doug Rice, Steven Teref, Kurt Cline, Charles Holdefer, Doug Skinner, Paulo Brito, Jhaki M.S. Landgrebe,Tara Stillions Whitehead, Maria Morisot, Fox Harvard, Charlie Griggs, Monika Mori, and Tom Whalen. [cover photograph by Fox Harvard]

Titillating art, photography, poetry and fiction.

70 pages, full color, perfect-bound.

CLICK HERE to order either the print edition ($16) or the discreet digital edition ($5)

BACKCOVER

If you’ve missed a previous number, back issues are available here.

Go with the flow . . .

WALLOMSAC-cover

Black Scat Books is pleased to present David R. Slavitt‘s sublime, Nabokovian text WALLOOMSAC: A WEEK ON THE RIVER — number 28 in our flagship Absurdist Texts & Documents series. Mr. Slavitt, a writer, poet, and translator, has authored over 100 books. Under the pseudonym “Henry Suttion”  he wrote the bestselling novel The Exhibitionist which sold over 4 million copies. To list all his titles here would require a web site all its own.

WALLOOMSAC is an absurdist journey that on the surface appears to travel in one direction yet actually meanders in many. The mysterious itinerary contains one surprise after another as Slavitt’s dazzling river ripples with eddies and undercurrents. And what’s this about Thomas Crapper? Well, yes, he’s in the book, too, but don’t ask us to explain.

Poet and critic R. H. W. Dillard:

“David Slavitt has written a book about or for which it is impossible simply to write a blurb—a word, it might interest you to know, coined in 1907 by Gelett Burgess. (Did you think of a purple cow, just then?) The text itself is indescribably (deliciously?) itself. Like the Waloomsac River, it just keeps rolling along, taking the reader irresponsibly with it—laughing out loud again and again and again; marveling at its rapid wit (white water?), the wide breadths of its erudition, the dangerous shallows of its overt and covert cheekiness; marking the vertiginous depths of its, yes, wisdom. To make a long blurb short, I haven’t had this kind of significant fun since I stayed up ‘til dawn one night in 1962 breathlessly reading Pale Fire for the very first time.”

Come take a swim… the water is fine.

WALLOOMSAC: A WEEK ON THE RIVER
David R. Slavitt
Absurdist Texts & Documents No. 28

Paper, perfect-bound; 88 pp. $20.00

CLICK HERE to order.

Made in China (Warning: Red Hot!)

new dinner-is-served

 THE LITTLE RED BOOK OF COMMIE PORN by Terri Lloyd & Norman Conquest

Black Scat Books presents the complete and unexpurgated edition of this banned classic of Maoist pornography. Profusely illustrated with full color posters, cult propaganda, sex toys, lewd photos, and explicit Red Chinese erotica never before seen in the west. Includes: Sado-Maoism, podophilia, Bendi Helmsman ™  fetish vibes, “Waters of Yin,”  incest-on-ice, gunnilingus, “Dear White-Boned Demon” advice column, & much, much more!

COMMIE-COVER

ADULTS ONLY

$24.00. 5¼” x 8¼”, Perfect-Bound paperback. Illustrated in lavish color. 50 pp. Limited to 100 copies.
ART  / COMMUNISM / SATIRE / SEX / HUMOR

SOLD OUT

The Mouse That Soared…

“An intriguing blend of SF, philosophy, and word play . . . Giddy fun!” —Rudy Rucker

STRAW-FOR-SCAT

“Call it science fiction or meta-fiction or cyber fiction . . . wonderfully funny, often exciting, always baffling, and occasionally even profound. It’s the Moby-Dick of mice!”   —R.H.W. Dillard

“Pollinates post-cyber-punk with headier poetry than the genre has yet known.”    —Andrei Codrescu

“Allusive, punning, intricately plotted and exponentially self-referential . . . science fiction which ultimately explores the science of fiction or, more aptly, the art of narrative.”  —Brad Richard, American Letters & Commentary

“Storytelling which is subtly, wickedly funny.”     —The Times-Picayune

Bulwer Zetford’s work-in-progress The Cosmic Messenger is about to take a strange turn, and the multiverse with it, when Roithamer of Relix “beads” once again and brings swirling into Zetford’s Kaduza M-mon processor the Encyclopedia Mouse, the one creature who can save the multiverse. Tale twines tale as the mouse battles his Doppelgänger in cyberspace, Heidegger in his Black Forest hut, and a hyper-crazed Roithamer. Death is everywhere, but the mouse, birling (if only barely) in his Binding Nexus Drive, is determined to narrate the universes away from their demise.

Dive into August with a stunning work of speculative metafiction. This is seminal post-cyberpunk with wicked Oulipian twists, crafted by a master of innovative fiction.

THE STRAW THAT BROKE
A novel by Tom Whalen
6” x 9”, trade paperback original. 172 pp.
$14.95  /  ISBN -13 978-0692259436

am-but

 

***

tom-whalenTOM WHALEN is a novelist, short story writer, poet and critic who has written for Agni, Asymptote, Bookforum, Chicago Review, Fiction International, Film Quarterly, the Washington Post and other publications. His books include Dolls, Elongated Figures, The Birth of Death and Other Comedies: The Novels of Russell H. Greenan, and the novels Roithamer’s Universe and The President in Her Towers, which John Warner in the Chicago Tribune called a “mash-up of Kingsley Amis and Italo Calvino. A strange, surreal and wonderful novel.”  Whalen currently lives in Stuttgart, Germany, where he teaches film at the State Academy of Art and Design.

Getting to know you . . .

Excerpted panel from “How Pleasant to Know Mister Skinner” in THE UNKNOWN ADJECTIVE AND OTHER STORIES by Doug Skinner.

excerpt

”Witty and ingenious comics from the exceptionally-talented writer, musician, performer, ventriloquist, and cartoonist Doug Skinner. It’s exciting to finally have these little-seen strips available in one beautiful book. You may be reminded of Voltaire or Ernie Bushmiller while reading these meticulously drawn stories featuring utterly hapless characters, but Mr. Skinner has a style all his own.” —R. Sikoryak

“Mr. Skinner knows many terrible, terrible secrets about us. We are once again fortunate that he chooses to share them so deftly and so altruistically.”—Mark Newgarden

What is the truth behind the “Unknown Adjective”? Will Walter and Benny find the elusive batworm? What really goes on out in “Cowboy Country”? And can Dr. Docket find a cure for all that ails Mr. Pert? You’ll discover the answers to these and other burning questions in this profusely illustrated collection of comics and picture stories from the brilliant (albeit peculiar) mind of Doug Skinner. Take a look inside and see for yourself. Your daily dilemmas will soon seem inconsequential, and the laughter you hear may turn out to be your own.

CLICK HERE to order from Amazon.

Even more fun than fireworks!

Witty and ingenious comics from the exceptionally-talented writer, musician, performer, ventriloquist, and cartoonist Doug Skinner. It’s exciting to finally have these little-seen strips available in one beautiful book. You may be reminded of Voltaire or Ernie Bushmiller while reading these meticulously drawn stories featuring utterly hapless characters, but Mr. Skinner has a style all his own.

  —R. Sikoryak (Masterpiece Comics)

PARTY

“Mr. Skinner knows many terrible, terrible secrets about us. We are once again fortunate that he chooses to share them so deftly and so altruistically.” —Mark Newgarden

What is the truth behind the “Unknown Adjective”?

Will Walter and Benny find the elusive batworm? What really goes on out in “Cowboy Country”? And can Dr. Docket find a cure for all that ails Mr. Pert? You’ll discover the answers to these and other burning questions in this profusely illustrated collection of comics and picture stories from the brilliant (albeit peculiar) mind of Doug Skinner. Take a look inside and see for yourself. Your daily dilemmas will soon seem inconsequential, and the laughter you hear may turn out to be your own.

BLACK SCAT BOOKS proudly presents Doug Skinner‘s curious comics in a large format (10 x 8 x 0.3 inches) trade paperback edition, featuring over 100 pages of wicked strips designed to disrupt “normal” thought patterns.

am-but

CLICK HERE for a peek….

Pages: 1 2

Word Champions!

Last Saturday’s BLACK SCAT AUTHORS PUNCHOUT at the Emily Harvey Foundation in NYC was packed. The bloodthirsty crowd was eager to see a K.O. but had to settle for wine. Nothing beats a night of fiction and fisticuffs and these  “Lit Bull” contenders were all victorious—Alain Arias-Misson, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Karen Moller, and (in absentia) Frank Pulaski.

Karina Tarnawsky deserves high praise for presiding over the unruly crowd as MC.  Here are a few shots of the event.

reading3
Alain Arias-Misson, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Karen Moller

reading2

Yuriy Tarnawsky; Karina Tarnawsky (MC) Karen Moller, and Alain Arias-Misson

alainreading

 

Please don’t feed the . . .

cs-cover

Female barbers attached to a pair of scissors that won’t stop, women who can’t conceal hard-earned wads of hundred dollar bills sticking up under their polka dot bikini bottoms, adulteresses who bludgeon their husbands to bloody deaths, Dostoyevskian prostitute virgins, compulsive seductresses who delight in torturing tall wimpy men, all shown in a blinding bright light on an absurdist stage. Are crocodiles capable of smiling if they can’t cry?

A dazzling new collection of absurdist “short shrift fictions” by Yuriy Tarnawsky, author of THE PLACEBO EFFECT TRILOGY.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR CROCODILE SMILES:

“In case you have missed the voice of the rich, courageous, adventurous fiction writing of Yuriy Tarnawsky, this collection will be a great introduction. You will experience his unique ability to meld wicked humor and looming gravitas.One of the great under-recognized talents in the fiction of the 20th – 21st century.” —Steve Katz

“If Frankenstein had had the wit of Groucho Marx and the subtle plasticity of Magritte he might have written these magical and dangerous stories instead of Yuriy Tarnawsky.The master of short tails has struck again! Frightening, funny and baffling as ever!” —Alain Arias-Misson

“Yuriy Tarnawsky’s fictional world is one in which every object and every action is meaningful. Haircuts have meaning. Two refrigerators are alive with ominous activity. Kafka meets Sartre (implying hell is… other bugs!).  Sweet porridge can ‘assuage the victim’s suffering.’ The stories are perfectly envisioned, as if Tarnawsky had just landed on this earth with his sense of wonder still intact, looking at everything and trying to understand. Reading these stories is like learning to see all over again!” —Eckhard Gerdes

Order the trade paperback edition now.

am-buy

***

yuriy-1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Yuriy Tarnawsky has authored some three dozen books of fiction, poetry, drama, essays, and translations in Ukrainian and English, most recently The Placebo Effect Trilogy—three volumes of interrelated mininovels—and Modus Tollens—a volume of Heuristic poetry. His affinity for animals is well exemplified not only in Crocodile Smiles but also in such books as the collection of stories Short Tails, in the second volume of the Trilogy, The Future of Giraffes, and most vividly in his best-known novel Three Blondes and Death. He was born in Ukraine but was raised and educated in the West. An engineer and linguist by training, he has worked as a computer scientist specializing in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing as well as professor of Ukrainian Literature and Culture. He lives with his wife Karina in the New York City metropolitan area.

___

Author photo: Oleh Holovackiy