Captain Cap Rides Again!

illustration by Doug Skinner

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!

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110 pages, perfect-bound. Limited to 125 copies. $21.50

CLICK HERE and climb aboard.

Classic Porn Reborn

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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.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

How to Write the Suicide Note

The following is an excerpt from Doktor Bey’s Suicide Guidebook, just published in a Black Scat Classic Interim Edition,  part of the Absurdist Texts & Documents series. Limited to 85 copies.

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THE SUICIDE NOTE

Here are ten tips to aid you in writing your suicide note, a particular often overlooked.

  1. Use of the first person is generally preferred.
  2. For maximum impact and credibility, always write in the past tense. (Example:: I was a failure in business.)
  3. If you are without family, friends, or even enemies, address the note “To Whom It May Concern.”
  4. When possible, use a typewriter. Far too many notes are indecipherable.
  5. Keep a carbon copy in your pocket, in case the original is misplaced.
  6. Do not concern yourself with the “beginning-middle-end” rule. Just concentrate on the end.
  7. Keep in mind that these are your last words. They should be commensurate with your social position.  They should reverberate in the reader’s mind!  Avoid such clichés as “Goodbye cruel world” and “To be or not to be . . .” Strive for the poetic.
  8. Self-pity, slang, and obscenity are acceptable.
  9. If artistically inclined, attach a self-portrait.
  10. Be brief. Nothing is more boring than a long goodbye.


*  *  *  *

Doktor Bey's Suicide Guidebook

CLICK HERE TO ORDER A COPY

The Original How-To to End All is Back!

Doktor Bey's Suicide Guidebook

Long before Dr. Kevorkian was turning off the lights and the Hemlock Society was stocking up on helium—before jihadis were blowing themselves to smithereens—there was DOKTOR BEY’S SUICIDE GUIDEBOOK—the inspiration behind the worldwide assisted suicide movement. Indeed, the SUICIDE GUIDEBOOK (originally published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1977) is the world’s first, lavishly illustrated how-to to end all. Written by the notorious Doktor Bey, it has everything you need to know—including tips on composing the suicide note.

Black Scat Books is pleased to make this long out of print classic available to a new generation of the chronically depressed. With the world in chaos, DOKTOR BEY’S SUICIDE GUIDEBOOK is a welcome alternative to waiting around for Armageddon.

It’s a foolproof shortcut to god knows what.

BUY NOW

The Idiot Hath Arrived!

No, not that idiot, this idiot…

How I Became an Idiot

Esteemed French drama critic (and the butt of derision at the cabaret Le Chat Noir), Francisque Sarcey reviewed the premiere of Alfred Jarry‘s Ubu Roi with this visionary verdict: ”…a filthy fraud which deserves nothing but the silence of contempt.”

Writer and humorist Alphonse Allais transformed Sarcey into an Ubuesque piñata in a series of wicked columns published under Sarcey’s name in the newspaper Le Chat Noir. 

Never before in English, this rare collection is introduced and translated from the French by Doug Skinner. Edition limited to 60 printed copies. #00 in our Black Scat Classics sub-series.

“How I Became an Idiot reminds me of Félix Fénéon’s excellent Novels in Three Lines… the unexpected is suddenly present, and there is rudeness, as well as a savagery of attack that we simply can’t imagine anyone doing to any well-known columnist of today and getting away with it.”
—Jeff Bursey, author of Verbatim: A Novel
Prepare yourself for some nasty laughs.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT.

May Allais

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Doug Skinner has shared some delicious Alphonse Allais tidbits—including a very rare photo of the master at his desk—over on the Ullage Group blog.

Meanwhile, volume three of Mr. Skinner’s translation of Allais’s Captain Cap is in the works.

For those interested in collecting the entire 4-volume set, copies of the first two are still available.

Captain Cap (Vol. I): Captain Cap Before the Electorate

Captain Cap (Vol. II): The Apparent Symbiosis Between the Boa and Giraffe

There will be no June Gloom here…

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Get out your markers and circle June 1st. That’s publication day for How I Became an Idiot by Francisque Sarcey. Sarcey (1827-1899) was an esteemed French drama critic and the butt of derision at the cabaret Le Chat noir. He reviewed the premiere of Alfred Jarry‘s Ubu Roi with this visionary verdict: “…a filthy fraud which deserves nothing but the silence of contempt.”

Yes, he was a visionary idiot.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S IRONY.

In the good hands of Alphonse Allais, Sarcey became an Ubuesque piñata for the avant-garde artists and writers of Montmartre. The absurdist master wrote a series of wicked columns for the newspaper Le Chat noir under the name Francisque Sarcey and, as you might imagine, merdre hit the fan. Pies and fists were flying and high society was aghast.

Be prepared for some nasty laughs in How I Became an Idiot. Never before in English, this rare collection has been translated from the French by the great Doug Skinner and is being issued in an extremely limited edition of 60 copies.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:  THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT

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Read more about forthcoming Interim Editions on the Bookends page here.

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