from CAPTAIN CAP: HIS ADVENTURES, HIS IDEAS, HIS DRINKS by Alphonse Allais, translated from the French by Doug Skinner.
Category: Humor
The Grand Madcap Edition of CAPTAIN CAP has Launched!
We’ve jumped the gun and released our mammoth deluxe trade paperback edition of Alphonse Allais’s CAPTAIN CAP: HIS ADVENTURES, HIS IDEAS, HIS DRINKS—translated by Doug Skinner. This is the complete & unabridged edition of the original 1902 French classic. 370 pages, including eight uncollected “Captain Cap” stories, plus a “Cappendix” of rare historical pictures.
The book is profusely illustrated with witty drawings by Doug Skinner, in addition to his extensive notes on the translation and swashbuckling introduction.
If you missed any of the limited edition capsized Captain Cap chapbooks in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series, you can get the whole kit and caboodle now, plus oodles more.
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ALPHONSE ALLAIS (1854-1905) was a peerless French humorist, celebrated posthumously by the Surrealists for his elegant style and disturbing imagination. In addition to composing absurdist texts for newspapers such as Le Chat Noir and Le Journal, he experimented with holorhymes, invented conceptual art, and created the earliest known example of a silent musical composition: Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man (1884). Truly ahead of his time (as well as ours), Allais is needed now more than ever. His mischievous work remains fresh, funny, and always surprising.
DOUG SKINNER has written numerous scores for theater and dance, particularly for actor/clown Bill Irwin (The Regard of Flight). His articles, cartoons, and translations have appeared in The Fortean Times, Fate, The Anomalist, Nickelodeon, Weirdo, Black Scat Review, and other periodicals. His translation of Isidore Isou’s Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara was published by Black Scat Books.
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ARE YOU IN THE UK? CLICK HERE TO ORDER
ARE YOU IN FRANCE? CLICK HERE TO ORDER
ARE YOU IN GERMANY? CLICK HERE TO ORDER
In the wings, some special things (third edition)…
Scat addicts (of which I’m one) will get their fix and kicks in the coming months. What would winter be without a stack of Scat on the bedside table? Bleak indeed. So cheer up & gear up… good reading is on the way.
On October 15th we’re releasing a limited edition of the play that may have influenced Samuel Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT. This deluxe edition of Balzac‘s 3-act comedy WAITING FOR GODEAU (Original title Mercodet) is translated from the French by Mark Axelrod. This launch is bound to make waves so circle the date in red.
In November, we’re publishing two Black Scat Classic Interim Editions.
First, a portfolio of cool nudes by the Austrian painter Monika Mori (known internationally as “Moo”). These dazzling abstract forms are at once playful, moody & seductive. Don’t miss MOO NUDES—a lush, erotic celebration of the female body.
Also in November, the legendary Opal Nations returns with some wicked (and we do mean wicked) visual black humor: EMBRYO WORLD. It’s sure to piss off the Right-to-Lifers and thrill the rest of us.
December, we raise the curtain on the Théâtre de l’Absurde—a limited edition of a hilarious little Patchenesque drama: ‘S A BIRD by Eckhard Gerdes. No spitting in the balcony.
Finally, for fans of Alphonse Allais, our sublime trade edition is AVAILABLE HERE.
There’s no government, but at least there’s still Art…
Pamper them with oils, swaddle them in the spoils of war. Watercolors, pastels, collage, découpage, gouache and the glory of riches. Feed their pointy little heads with the visions of well-heeled contemporary masters. Shower them with glitter from the gods. Smother them in dark museums and galleries. Clobber the slobbering blobs with sculpted urns, lash them with brushes dripping illusions. Give them the gift of fab, fame and fortune! Bestow upon them this Fun and Profitable Activity Book by one of Italy’s greatest living artists—Peppo Bianchessi.
CONTEMPORARY ART FOR RICH KIDS is a full color, illustrated guide to modern rat and the wonders of creation’s maze. Let the kiddies ogle, spit, guffaw and squirm as they learn and play. Remember: rich kids represent the future of the planet. These little amorphodytes are our future landlords & banksters; they are budding mobsters, jihadis, politicians, investors, meth-heads and speculators. They were born to remake the world spin in their own greedy image.
Spoil them now while there’s still time. Give them something to do. Or read it yourself. It’s the breakfast of Duchampions.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER this luxurious little book of dreams.
A Black $cat Scholastic Classic.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Peppo Bianchessi is a multimedia artist from Italy. He is a “mittel-European”, a funny intellectual strongly influenced by Japanese culture. In Italy, Multimedia Artists have been around since the Renaissance and, before Apple Computers and multi-tasking, they were simply called Renaissance Men. When he was 20, Peppo went to the Venice Art Biennale for the first time. He was surprised to see that some of the so-called “young artists” were over 50. Recently he returned to Venice and discovered some teenagers were considered “young artists.” Peppo is now 45 years old and has never been a young artist. And it’s probably too early to consider him an Old Master, but he’s working on it. That is, to become old, not a Master. On many occasions he has tried to be a contemporary artist, but his timing was always wrong. Thus, he has accepted his real vocation: undermining the education of children (and adults) through funny and provocative books.
Contemporary Art For Rich Kids is his first book to be published in the United States.
Bon Voyage, Captain Cap
For those who may have missed our editions of Alphonse Allais‘s CAPTAIN CAP, here’s a treat: Doug Skinner‘s introduction to Vol. IV, THE SANATORIUM OF THE FUTURE:
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Dorothy Parker once remarked that most humorists “milk a formula until it moos in pain.” After so many years of turning in several columns a week, Allais may have been feeling the strain. He admitted in one piece that the punning names he used for his characters were not really that funny. In a series of rather glum installments in 1901 (July 25, July 31, August 9), he simply listed recent patent applications. Contemplating such genuine inventions as the luminous hat, the pedal-operated fan, the combination fishing pole and bicycle pump, the hail parasol, the gloves made from intestinal membranes, the multicolored cane, the sea soap, the summer fez, the metal legs for wooden horses, the powdered cheese, “etc., etc., etc.,” he could only remark, “The fantasists who think they’re so clever when they imagine a dust-catcher for submarines, or a rubber muzzle to prevent snails from dribbling on the salad, are small beer beside certain serious and licensed inventors.” Fact, all too often, trumps fiction, to the eternal despair of humorists.
All Hands on Deck! The Future Has Arrived!
Ahoy mates! —the fourth and final volume in the Captain Cap Collection has arrived—more madcap tales by the great French absurdist, Alphonse Allais. His hard-drinking, philosophizing, womanizing, & pioneering Captain Cap sails again to some hilariously strange shores. The pun-filled text has been brilliantly translated (and profusely illustrated) by Doug Skinner—and includes a penetrating preface and extensive notes on the text.
If you’ve never heard of “crocodile bridges” or “smell-buoys”, then you simply must read this literary landmark—the first English translation of “…one of the great masterpieces of humorous literature.”—nooSFere Littérature.
Come on in, the water’s fine…
CLICK HERE TO ORDER A COPY OF THIS LIMITED EDITION
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Volumes I – III are out of print..
Captain Cap Rides Again!
Hang on to your caps, folks, the Captain is back in a capsized edition designed to tease—Volume III in our hilarious 4-volume series.
Captain Cap: The Antifilter & Other Inventions by Alphonse Allais, translated and illustrated by Doug Skinner. This literary landmark is the first publication in English featuring Allais’s hilarious, booze-cruising captain of the high seas—the unthinkably unsinkable Captain Cap.
Over 100, profusely illustrated pages, The Antifilter is packed with strange, pataphysical inventions, quirky cons, cocktails, wordplay and absurd pranks. In short, it’s a feast for landlubbers and lover’s of French lit & humor.
DISCOVER:
- a new way to give microbes what they deserve
- a successful ascension, without a craft
- a machine that travels 234 kilometers an hour
- the secret of a truly modern house
- the art of shoeing horses on the Australian pampas
- a strange theory on the formation of coal
and much, much more!
110 pages, perfect-bound. Limited to 125 copies. $21.50
CLICK HERE and climb aboard.
ripped from the pages of the OED . . .
Classic Porn Reborn
Black Scat Books is delighted to bring this ancient classic back into print in a perfect-bound edition designed for the modern connoisseur. Facetiae is a collection of humorous and indecent tales by Renaissance humanist Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459), first published in 1470. It features such stories as “Of a Fool, Who Thought His Wife Had Two Openings” and “Visio Francisci Philelphi,” the earliest recorded version of Carvel’s ring. This limited edition includes a hand-lettered cover by artist Jana Vukovic.
Over a hundred pages of lascivious mirth!
If you haven’t been collecting our Black Scat Classic Interim Editions, now is a good time to start.
blackscatbooks.com 