“There’s been a murder here and someone’s responsible.”

Those words from Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) are as true today as ever. But as any hard-boiled dick knows, solving a murder—or any crime for that matter—is no easy task. The proof of that lies in Lono Tagger‘s weird little picture-puzzle book: CRIME MEMES.

Discover imaginary crimes, impossible clues, contaminated evidence, red herrings, private a-eyes, surrealist stoolies, & masters of disguise.

WARNING: FORENSIC HUMOR

CRIME MEMES: A SURREALIST PUZZLE BOOK—just in time for the holidays.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lono Taggers is an insurgent collage artist and translator. He was born in Budapest, Hungary, educated in Great Britain, and lives in Paris with his wife and daughter. He has translated several notorious works by Pierre Louÿs, including A Handbook of Manners for the Good Girls of France (New Urge Editions, Pocket Erotica Series: 2022). His experiments with AI-assisted collage have appeared in Roussel’s Revenge and Typo: The International Journal of Prototypes.

COFFEE TABLE NOIR

“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.

Seven is Heaven

Where else would you meet this cast of luminaries….

Alphonse Allais; mIEKAL aND; Terry Bradford; Steve Carll; Norman Conquest; Lynn Crawford; Noël Devaulx; Mark DuCharme; Albert Ehrenstein; Shawn Garrett; Edward Gauvin; Richard Huelsenbeck; Iliazd; Mark Kanak; Thomas J. Kitson; Amy Kurman; Jean Lorrain; Emilia Loseva; Marcel Mariën; Willy Melnikov; Raymond Roussel; Heather Sager; Phil Demise Smith; Doug Skinner; Paul Willems; Cynthia Yatchman.

151 pp., trade paperback; $20

Sweet Sixteen!

We are elated, delirious, tickled, thrilled, and ecstatic to announce the 16th volume in our acclaimed Alphonse Allais Collection. This first English translation of Allais’s Pour cause de fin de bail has been exquisitely prepared and introduced (with notes on the text) by master translator Doug Skinner.

 

This wickedly amusing collection contains fifty-three absurdist tales—packed with phantom limbs, floating brothels, tapeworms, ostrich shoes, and other remarkable things. It makes a jolly beach read, or to browse in your hammock whilst sipping a cool glass of lemonade—or better yet, a jug of absinthe.

 

So, if you haven’t already begun gathering your personal Allais collection—shame on you!—now is the time to start. Scroll down and you’ll find unadulterated links to each edition for convenient purchasing.

Happy Summer!

Le propriétaire

My Rent Is Due!

Let’s Not Hit Each Other

We Are Not Sheep

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  

 

LIGHT THOSE FIREWORKS, BABY!

222 titles and counting, and we’re counting on you to keep us going. Support this small independent press and help the good Scat keep on rolling.

HAPPY SUMMER!

JAFFE

With deep sadness Black Scat Books mourns the loss of a great writer and good friend.

WHET YOUR APPETITE…

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

A COLLAGE NOVEL FOR THE AGES

When a tsunami of smut floods the city of London, the Anti-Smut Brigade is at sixes and sevens. Scotland Yard yanks Sir Reginald Fuzz out of retirement, for he  is their last best hope of saving the Empire.

Can the foremost moralist, expert on the perils of porno, and ex-chief of the Anti-Smut Brigade (par excellence),  stem the tide of this degenerate invasion?  

Or… will Great Britain go to hell in a handbasket like the Roman Empire? 

Time is running out.  Big Ben is ticking . . .

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR FUZZ AGAINST SMUT

“Time Trip Incarnate! I thought my fingers (and brain) would explode—this classic Infernal Machine is reignited!… Magnificent!”
—Nile Southern, author of The Candy Men: The Rollicking Life and Times of the Notorious Novel Candy

“Fuzz Against Smut reanimates what has become an endangered subspecies of comedy: madcap, manic, wildly absurd, sublimely subversive humor. (As exemplified by – among others – the Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce, William Burroughs, Terry Southern, Lord Buckley, and Akbar del Piombo.) This is a zany, quirky and very funny book, an antic fable for our fractured times and a balm for weary minds.”  —Gregory Stephenson, author of Alias Akbar del Piombo

“In 100 years, hipsters will take college classes on Terry Southern, Roland Topor, and Derek Pell. This book will be required reading. Playing the long game, Pastormerlo and Pell’s masterstroke does for smut what Trump did for infectious diseases.”  —Paul Rosheim

“The original ‘Fuzz Against Junk’ text was funny and its images were engaging; this takeoff is even funnier, and more deeply and intricately illustrated. A topnotch homage.”  – M. Kasper

“FUZZ is a wonderland of literary confusions that will enrich your soul.” —Doug Rice

“A fun read.” —John Coulthart

Fuzz Against Smut: The Saga of the Anti-Smut Brigade
Angelo Pastormerlo & Derek Pell, with collages by Norman Conquest
Absurdist Texts & Documents #48
Paperback, profusely illustrated; 105 pp., $15

Rare Fuzz postcard

A BIG NEW ISSUE!

Our biggest issue yet—169 pages—packed with prototypes, visual poetry, Belgian fiction, chronograms, Symbolist decadence, vintage surrealism & much more. Featuring an international cast of artists, poets, and writers, including: Frédéric Acquaviva; Terry J. Bradford; Apollo Camembert; Steve Carll; Norman Conquest; Lynn Crawford; Caroline Crépiat; Noël Devaulx; Shawn Garrett; Edward Gauvin; Nico Kirschenbaum; John Kruse; Amy Kurman; Jean Lorrain; Emilia Loseva; Jean Muno; Opal Louis Nations; Clemente Palma; Claudio Parentela; Vojtěch Preissig; Vania Russo; Nelly Sanchez; Marcel Schneider; and Doug Skinner.

Maria De Naglowska: Surrealist Muse

The Sapphic Works of  Pierre Louÿs

Italian Precursors of the Incohérents

Symbolist decadence

Vintage typography

A phenakistoscope

Latvian collage

Belgian fiction

Czech eye candy

German Romanticism

Peruvian phantasmagoria

Silent cinema

Cryptic chronograms

Oulipian wordplay

Visual poetry

Asemic specimens

Weird tales

& more