“A Surrealist museum of femmes fatale!”

WOMEN cover

Not since André Breton’s Nadja has there been anything like this. Hallucinatory portraits, collaged, painted, scrawled by a visual poet of Chicago’s mean streets. Ephemeral, fresco’d goddesses drift out of reach, taunt us, haunt us, inspire desire and erotic obsessions. Indifferent brides, savage debutantes, sirens and succubi, erotic dream queens and mythical girls next door.

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The artist’s one-of-kind hand-bound original.

Originally an extraordinary one-of-a-kind, hand-bound artist’s book, WOMEN THAT DON’T EXIST has been lovingly reproduced in sublime full color. 63 pages, perfect-bound in a limited collector’s edition of 100 copies. $16.00  / BLACK SCAT CLASSIC INTERIM EDITION #09

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Back cover.

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Frontis and title page

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 Frank Pulaski’s graffiti’d visions seduce the eye and fire the imagination.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

The New Windows!

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Digitally enhanced scenes from 50 Film Noir masterpieces as you’ve never seen them before!

REAR WINDOWS is a must-have reference for thrill-seeking aficionados, students of cinema, and collectors of offbeat artists’ books. Spanning the golden age of Noir (1941-1962), this edition includes rare, resurrected photographs from the most memorable hard-boiled classics. This lavish, perfect-bound reference is destined to become the bible of film study departments around the world.

With an introduction by Robert Wexelblatt, Professor of Humanities, Boston University.

Have you had your MUD BATH today?

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“Allan Bealy is a collagist with a profound knowledge of the form’s history, as well as art history—period. With a vision that’s wide-ranging but cohesive, he’s one of those artists who can serve up a banquet of images in seemingly disparate styles, yet you’ll always know who cooked them up. Dig in to this delectable feast for the eyes, but take the time to savor each course.”
—Peter Cherches, author of Lift Your Right Arm

“At last, an album of Bealy’s edgy, layered, elegant collages. Incisive in both senses.”—Michael Kasper

SOLD OUT

 

 

“Here’s mud in your eye!”

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We’re pleased to announce that—based on this morning’s phenomenal sales—Allan Bealy‘s MUD BATH has become our #1 best seller.  We advise fans of cutting edge collage to act quickly before this limited edition becomes an outrageously priced collector’s item.  SOLD OUT

Happy May Day to all!

The Cutting (and pasting) Edge

“At last, an album of Bealy’s edgy, layered, elegant collages. Incisive in both senses.”—Michael Kasper

MUDBATH

Allan Bealy has been making masterful, handmade collages for years. Working within art’s most accessible form, Bealy manages to consistently surprise the viewer. From a secret stash of source material, he has carved out a style all his own. His exquisite sense of design and powerful imagination combine to produce images you won’t soon forget. Now Black Scat Books brings you this remarkable artist’s first collection in a full color, 68-page perfect-bound collector’s chapbook.

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“Allan Bealy is a collagist with a profound knowledge of the form’s history, as well as art history—period. With a vision that’s wide-ranging but cohesive, he’s one of those artists who can serve up a banquet of images in seemingly disparate styles, yet you’ll always know who cooked them up. Dig in to this delectable feast for the eyes, but take the time to savor each course.”
—Peter Cherches, author of Lift Your Right Arm

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Limited to 100 copies, this Black Scat Classic Interim Edition is the next best thing to a coffee table mud bath.

SOLD OUT

Spring Noir is Here!

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We’re thrilled to announce this advance release of Norman Conquest’s REAR WINDOWS: AN INSIDE LOOK AT FIFTY FILM NOIR CLASSICS—destined to become the bible of Film Noir studies

This special edition features digitally enhanced scenes from fifty Film Noir masterpieces as you’ve never seen them before. It’s a must-have reference for thrill-seeking aficionados, students of cinema, and collectors of offbeat artists’ books. Spanning the golden age of Noir (1941-1962), it includes over 50 rare photographic stills from memorable hard-boiled motion pictures, such as The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Big Sleep, Out of the Past, Kiss Me Deadly, and many more. Includes an illuminating introduction by Robert Wexelblatt, Professor of Humanities, Boston University.

ADVANCE PRAISE:

“…the most truthful book on Noir that’s out there.” —Tosh Berman, Tam Tam Books

“I’ve just been (re)reading Rancière on the mis-en-scene revolution in theatre at the end of C19th. Here Norman Conquest goes literally beyond the mis-en-scene and adds in a Wagnerian negation of the star system. Erase glamour! Bring forward the scene makers.“—Stefan Szczelkun

“This is conceptual art at its finest. Ingenious in its simplicity, startling, absurd, and very funny.” —Alec  Burroughs

“Evocative… I like the various physical/psychological angles with which [Conquest] approaches  the stills, each of which is elegantly if sometimes surprisingly effected.” —Harold Jaffe

This is No. 27 in our acclaimed Absurdist Texts & Documents Series.
Perfect-bound paperback. 68 pp. $16.00

CLICK HERE to order online.

Back in Print! (sort of)

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We’re pleased to announce that BLACK SCAT REVIEW – No. 1 (2012)  is available in facsimile digital edition. If you missed it, now’s your chance to complete your collection of back issues.

The notorious “Cruci-Fiction” issue features works by Alphonse Allais, Florence Bocherel, Pierre Henri Cami, Pedro Carolino, Norman Conquest, John Crombie, S.N. Jacobson, Crad Kilodney, Michael Leigh, Samantha Memi, Doug Skinner, Yuriy Tarnawsky, and Tom Whalen.

PLUS,  Elizabeth Archer’s interview with Samantha Memi, the UK’s flash fiction goddess and pastry chef.

You can order a print edition for the outrageous price of $1,000, or nab the spiffy digital edition for only $5.00.

Now that’s a steal!

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Get your head around this . . .

JT

“Yes. The best thing would be for me to go away. Everyone says so: Geneviève, Emmanuelle, Dr. Strouville; no doubt the milkman, the President of the Republic, and the Pope in Rome agree. The Minister might allow me a couple of weeks, but he’s been looking at me strangely of late, furtively but with intensity, as if trying to peer inside my skull and make a proper survey of the bleak thoughts to be found there…”

Crad Kilodney (1948-2014) R.I.P.

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The legendary absurdist writer Crad Kilodney passed away on April 14th.

I knew Crad back in the early days when he was hawking his outrageously titled books on the mean streets of Toronto.  You can imagine the reception he received with books like the one shown above. People were either completely indifferent or fist-shakingly hostile. But that never stopped him. With crazy courage he stood his ground for 17 years.  He produced 32 books of brilliant humor & satire.

I had the pleasure of collaborating with him on a few pieces (circa 1979) for Only Paper Today, an avant-garde Toronto newspaper.

He was often under the influence of Alphonse Allais, for he would interrupt his texts with hilarious asides and non sequiturs. One of my favorites appeared in the middle of a paragraph, sans parentheses: “Speed-readers go to hell.”

In 2012, I reprinted Crad’s story “Ed McBain Stole My Joke” in the first issue of BLACK SCAT REVIEW.

Sad that he left us, but he has left me laughing — that’s  the highest compliment I know.

Here’s a link to his obit  and below a short documentary about him made in 1992 at York University .

Crad Kilodney from Tristen Bakker on Vimeo.

In the merry month of May…

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Featuring John Nickle, Kelli Stanley, J Kingston Pierce, Michael Hemmingson, Farewell Debut, Steven M. Markow, Michelle Gray, Larry Fondation, Susan Siegrist, Tom Larsen, Harold Jaffe, Carla M. Wilson, Peter Cherches, and Monika Mori.