This eccentric anthology brings together eight distinct, genre-defying works by literary and visual arts prankster Norman Conquest. Blending irony, Oulipian constraints, Surrealist subversion, and absurdist archeology, this omnibus showcases a singular voice in contemporary, experimental fiction.
THE ABSURD WORLD OF NORMAN CONQUEST
Norman Conquest
With an introduction by Doug Skinner
Trade paper; 205 pp.; $14.95
What a great way to start 2026 — “The Eros Issue” of TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes #13 — 160 pages of prurient prose, poetry, & titillating graphics. Featuring Nile Southern‘s Oulipian dive into Daddy Terry Southern‘s classic novel CANDY; Amy Kurman on silent stag films; an interview with a bisexual Surrealist vampire; suggestive covers from a 1930s French glamour zine; a report on a shocking Parisienne incident by Alfred Jarry; excerpts from Walter Serner‘s novel THE TIGRESS; and much more.
This special issue includes stellar works by Madeleine de L’Aubépine; Marcel Béalu; Erik Belgum; Tristan Bernard; Terry Bradford; R J Dent; Mike Ferguson; Rachel Galvin; Massimo Gatta; Edward Gauvin; Alfred Jarry; Gabriel de Lautrec; George MacLennan; Alfred de Musset; Opal Louis Nations; Ernesto López Parra; Alejandro Albarrán Polanco; Bernard Quiriny; James Richie; George Sand; Doug Skinner; Lono Taggers; Corinne Taunay; Robin Tomens; Paul Willems, and Mark Wyatt.
Don’t miss TYPO 13.
IN THIS ISSUE:
Julien Gracq’s “The House”
Albert Cossery’s “Perpetually Barking Man”
The Belgian School of the Bizarre
Paul Nougé’s Optic Unveiled
A “Surreal Wheels” pictorial
Doug Skinner’s intrusive Reader Survey
A rare Boggle toss
Bouncing Draculas
An Oulipian crossword puzzle
And more avant-garde goodness.
FEATURING 38 LUMINARIES: Robert Archambeau; Corina Bardoff; Terry Bradford; Igor Bulatovsky; Paul Busson; Apollo Camembert; Norman Conquest; Albert Cossery; Noël Devaulx; Rachel Galvin; Jean-Luc Gameau; Shawn Garrett; Edward Gauvin; Julien Gracq; Pierre Autin-Grenier; Daniel Y. Harris; Rick Henry; Esteban Isnardi; Julia Lillard; Joshua Martin; George MacLennan; Dmitri Manin; Paul Nougé; Thomas Owen; Angelo Pastormerlo; Alejandro Albarrán Polanco; Bernard Quiriny; Adam Ranđelović; Simon Read; Doug Skinner; Lono Taggers; Mark Valentine; Tim Walker; Gregory Wallace; Alyson Waters; Andrew Wenaus; Tom Whalen; Bill Wolak.
TYPO #12: The International Journal of Prototypes
edited by Norman Conquest & Paul Rosheim
Trade paperback; 157 pp., illustrated.
ISBN 979-8-9923826-9-3
Alphonse Allais’s collected stories were published in eleven volumes between 1892 and 1902. He called these books his “Anthumous Works.” With the publication of Feeding Time, Black Scat has now issued all of them—all first English translations by Doug Skinner.
Our stellar, 17-volume Alphonse Allais Collection is now complete and includes six additional volumes: Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks; The Blaireau Affair, Allais’s only novel; Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais; I Am Sarcey, his stories featuring Francisque Sarcey; Alphonse Allais’s Masks: Deluxe Special Edition. (an illustrated version of one of his stories); and our sampler, The Alphonse Allais Reader.
If you haven’t discovered France’s greatest humorist, dig in!
FEEDING TIME
Alphonse Allais
Translated by Doug Skinner
Paperback; 168 pp.; $14.95
ISBN 979-8-9923826-4-8
“This eerily beautiful picturebook is at once nostalgic, futique, and a testimony to our evolving cyborg reality. Art-goers new and old will not be able to look away.”
–D. Harlan Wilson
We’re excited to release this sublime, large format edition, AFTER HOPPER, featuring over fifty full color collages by artist Norman Conquest.
Here’s a peek:
AFTER HOPPER is, in part, an homage to American Painter Edward Hopper, with original, surreal, and ironic images to haunt your imagination. Using both traditional cut-and-paste collage techniques, as well as cutting edge AI tools, Norman Conquest paints a fresh absurdist portrait of the past and present.
Here’s your chance to sample 14 titles in the Pocket Erotica Series, the
seminal series of classic & contemporary erotic fiction.
This mouth-watering anthology includes:
Travels to Merryland. Anonymous
From Their Lips to His Ear. Denis Diderot
Priapeia. Anonymous
A Judge Deceived. Marquis de Sade
A Good Girl’s Home Companion. Lawrence Hamilton
A Handbook of Manners for the Good Girls of France. Pierre Louÿs
Poems of Lust & Desire. Various
Jean-Fucque. Louis Aragon / RJ Dent
Eve’s Academy. Eurydice Eve
A Dirty Story as You Like It. Kim Vodicka
Escape Artists. Su Orwell
Grand Hotel Vittoria. Nina Ansani
The Obedience Room. Catherine D’Avis
The Desire Box. Laure Favager
THE POCKET EROTICA READER
A Connoisseur’s Sampler
Edited by Norman Conquest
New Urge Editions
Paperback; 178 pp.; $14
ISBN 979-8-9908521-5-0
This scandalous little work appeared in France under the title “Letter to La Présidente.”
Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) was a novelist and poet, one of the champions of Romanticism. In 1850, he and his friend Louis de Cormenin visited Italy, so he wrote his friends back home a letter about their adventures. The result was a rollicking “filthy letter,” packed with jokes, slang, obsolete words, literary allusions, puns, alliterations, neologisms, Spoonerisms, verses, outrageous metaphors, and Rabelaisian lists. It was published privately in 1890, and became a clandestine classic.
A FILTHY LETTER
Théophile Gautier
Translated from the French by Doug Skinner,
with an introduction & notes on the text
Pocket Erotica Series #28
74 pp., 4 x 6 inches;
979-8-9894330-7-0
In war there is only one winner...
Scheduled for publication in 1917, this illustrated text was banned in France for its antiwar and anti-military—(dare we say pro-rat)—stance. Thus, Descaves’ incendiary little chapbook did not appear until 1920, when the censors finally waved their white flag and surrendered to reality.
Alas, THE RAT WINS! is a potent work of black humor which will remain relevant as long as humans walk the earth.
Read it in peace.
THE RAT WINS!
Lucien Descaves
Illustrations by Lucien Laforge
Translated from the French by Doug Skinner
Chapbook; 41 pp.; $12; ISBN 979-8989433063
Absurdist Texts & Documents #47
FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Lucien Descaves (1861-1949) was a prolific novelist, journalist, and playwright, and a constant activist for anarchism and pacifism. His antimilitary novel Sous-Offs (Non-Coms), published in 1889, earned him and his publisher arrests for insulting the army and offending morals. He was a founding member of the Académie Goncourt and the utopian community la Clairière de Vaux, and the literary executor of J.-K. Huysmans. His autobiography, Souvenirs d’un ours (Memoirs of a Bear), was published in 1946.
Lucien Laforge (1889-1954) contributed cartoons and illustrations to many periodicals, particularly for the anarchist press. He was uncompromising and often destitute; he was discharged twice in World War I after feigning insanity. His books include illustrations for Rabelais, Perrault, and Baudelaire, as well as his alphabet Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz (1924).
Doug Skinner has translated many wonderful books for Black Scat Books, Wakefield Press, Corps Reviver, and Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, as well as contributing to the Fortean Times, Nickelodeon, Cabinet, and other fine magazines. His latest book of short stories is The Potato Farm, from Black Scat.
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.
Start the New Year off with a bang. Give different!
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