Category: Humor

Happy New Year–It’s Here!

We’re starting off 2024 with a blast—an awesome issue of TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes.

STARRING: Tim Newton Anderson; Michael Betancourt; David Brizer; Steve Carll; Norman Conquest; Farewell Debut; R J Dent;  Jesse Glass; Reinhard Goering; Rhys Hughes; Tim Hutchings; Mark Kanak; M. Kasper; Amy Kurman; Gabriel de Lautrec; Emilia Loseva; Jim McMenamin; O Homem do Saco; Jasia Reichardt; Doug Rice; Paul Rosheim; Doug Skinner;  Franciszka Themerson; Stefan Thernerson; John Vieira; Gregory Wallace; and Danny Winkler. 

PLUS EIGHT RUSSIAN FUTURISTS:
Velimir Khlebnikov, Igor Terentjev, Aleksey Kruchenykh, Vasily Kamensky, Pavel Kokorin, Tykhon Churylin, Bodjidar (Bogdan Gordejev), and David Burliuk. 

featuring

·     THE EVOLUTION OF IT

·     TOUR DE PANTS

·     PORTRAITS OF SADE

·     SECONDHAND SMOKE SIGNALS

·     ALFRED JARRY, TEEN PATAPHYSICIAN

·     ANTIQUARIAN PUZZLES

·     RUSSIAN FUTURISTS

·     CUBIST TALES

·     DRIBBLING DRABBLES

·     MR. COPYRIGHT

·     REINHARD GOERING STORIES

·     THEMERSON’S LOST FILM

·     FOUND FINDS

·     TYPO’S TYPOS

            And much more

Grab your copy today.

TYPO #4: The International Journal of Prototypes
edited by Norman Conquest
trade paperback; 152 pp., illustrated; $20

Throw open the curtain!

MISANTHROPIC STOCKING STUFFER

After years of exhaustive field work amongst “the others” and a deep-dive into the primary literature of the tribe, the author here offers – for the first time – new tools to assist the reader in complicating their lives and excavating their souls.

“Terrible advice, artfully told.” – Larry McCaffery, author of Lit-Crit.

PEOPLE TO AVOID
Jim McMenamin
Absurdist Texts & Documents No. 46
112 pp., $12

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jim McMenamin is a writer and self-care Guru stationed in Southern California.

Just in time for the holidays!

We proudly present the 15th volume in our grand Alphonse Allais Collection. Here is France’s greatest humorist in top form. This first English translation of WE ARE NOT SHEEP features 44 witty tales, PLUS four extra stories, translated by Allaisian scholar Doug Skinner, with his erudite introduction and complete notes on the text.

If you’re looking for laughter—(and, hell, who isn’t?)—this delightful edition is a gift that will long be remembered.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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, pioneered conceptual art, and created the earliest known example of a silent musical composition: FUNERAL MARCH FOR THE OBSEQUIES OF A DEAF MAN (1884). Ahead of his time (as well as ours), Allais is needed now more than ever. His mischievous work remains fresh, funny, and always surprising.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

DOUG SKINNER has contributed to Black Scat Review, The Fortean Times, Strange Attractor Journal, Fate, Weirdo, Nickelodeon, Cabinet, and other fine publications. Black Scat Books has published several books of his stories, cartoons, and songs, as well as translations of Alphonse Allais, Charles Cros, Alfred Jarry, Pierre-Corneille Blessebois, Luigi Russolo, Caroline Crépiat, and Corinne Taunay. Other translations include Three Dreams (Giovanni Battista Nazari, Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks), The Cocktail Hour (Marcel Requien and Lucien Farnoux, with Gaylor Olivier, Corps Reviver), and Principles of Cerebral Mechanics (Charles Cros, Wakefield Press). 

He has written music for several dance companies; his scores for actor/clown Bill Irwin include The Regard of Flight, The Courtroom, The Regard Evening, and The Harlequin Studies.

TV and movie appearances include Great Performances, Martin Mull’s Talent Takes a Holiday, Mike’s Talent Show, Ed, Crocodile Dundee II, several of George Kuchar’s videos, and a smattering of commercials.

His albums That Regrettable Weekend, It All Went Pfft, and An Afternoon in the Arboretum are available on Bandcamp.

Funny Farm …

What happens when constellations socialize, when Faust and the Devil start drinking, when imaginary friends gain imaginary friends, when Sleeping Beauty and Rip van Winkle trade places, when Duncan paints a cockatrice, when a terrifying Werechurch roams the land? And was it really a good idea for August and Collier to start that potato farm, especially given Collier’s troubled past? Doug Skinner defines his own comic genre, filled with vivid characters, fictional physics, and surprising narratives, often filtered through stringent constraints to keep the language lively. If you read only one book this year, read this one over and over again!

Happy B’day, Alphonse Allais!

Illustration by Corinne Taunay

A toast to France’s greatest humorist!

Here in America, Black Scat Books has published thirteen collections by the master absurdist — all skillfully translated by Doug Skinner. And coming this December — we’ll bring you Allais’s 14th book—WE ARE NOT SHEEP.

While you’re waiting, please check out our vast Alphonse Allais Collection below. These volumes will keep you laughing throughout 2024. (Click on the titles below for details.)

Let’s Not Hit Each Other

2 + 2 = 5

Loves, Delights, & Organs

Alphonse Allais Reader

The Blaireau Affair

Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks

Pink and Apple-Green

Double Over

I Am Sarcey

Long Live Life!

Masks: Deluxe Special Edition

No Bile!

Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais

The Squadron’s Umbrella  

BEDSIDE READING FOR THE CURIOUS

First came the groundbreaking Le Scat Noir Encyclopaedia in 2017. Three years later we launched the pataphysical classic Le Scat Noir Encyclopédie et Dictionnaire de la Pataphysique, des arts et du savoir humain: Volume Deux (in English of course). Today we’re pleased to announce a handy reference destined to become a bestseller among scholars and sex fiends: A Concise Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality — a conveniently sized paperback – perfect for beach orgies or boring church sermons. It’s a volume you’ll want to keep within reach in the bedroom or bath. And it’s guaranteed to answer all your questions. (If not, it’s packed with illustrations to ogle and drool over.)

The Encyclopedia features this distinguished panel of 23 experts of various sexual proclivities:

• Tim Anderson
• Mark Axelrod
• Tom Barrett
• Cathy Bryant
• Lenny Cavallaro
• Norman Conquest
• Rémy Dambron
• R J Dent
• Eckhard Gerdes
• Jesse Glass
• Malcolm Green
• Rhys Hughes

• Victor Hugo
• Amy Kurman
• Michael Leigh
• David Moscovich
• Opal Louis Nations
• Peter Payack
• Derek Pell
• Sourav Roy
• Jessica Ross-Dreher
• Paul Rosheim
• Doug Skinner
• Tom Whalen

AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE ON AMAZON.