MASKS
Alphonse Allais
translated from the French and illustrated by Norman Conquest
with an introduction and notes on the text by Doug Skinner
Absurdist Texts & Documents – No. 1
Illustrated in full color; 50 pp., $12.50
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REAR WINDOWS: AN INSIDE LOOK AT FIFTY FILM NOIR CLASSICS
Norman Conquest
with an introduction by Robert Wexelblatt
Absurdist Texts & Documents – No. 27
Illustrated; 70 pp., $12
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”Witty and ingenious comics from the exceptionally-talented writer, musician, performer, ventriloquist, and cartoonist Doug Skinner. It’s exciting to finally have these little-seen strips available in one beautiful book. You may be reminded of Voltaire or Ernie Bushmiller while reading these meticulously drawn stories featuring utterly hapless characters, but Mr. Skinner has a style all his own.” —R. Sikoryak
“Mr. Skinner knows many terrible, terrible secrets about us. We are once again fortunate that he chooses to share them so deftly and so altruistically.”—Mark Newgarden
What is the truth behind the “Unknown Adjective”? Will Walter and Benny find the elusive batworm? What really goes on out in “Cowboy Country”? And can Dr. Docket find a cure for all that ails Mr. Pert? You’ll discover the answers to these and other burning questions in this profusely illustrated collection of comics and picture stories from the brilliant (albeit peculiar) mind of Doug Skinner. Take a look inside and see for yourself. Your daily dilemmas will soon seem inconsequential, and the laughter you hear may turn out to be your own.
CLICK HERE to order on Amazon
Black Scat launched its first book on July 4th, 2012. MASKS by Alphonse Allais was #1 in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series of limited edition chapbooks. The original volume (above left)—adapted, translated and illustrated by artist Norman Conquest—was limited to only 50 copies. It sold out quickly and is a prized collector’s item today.
In 2015, we issued a revised and expanded edition (center) featuring an introduction and notes on the text by Allaisian scholar Doug Skinner.
The first two editions had limited distribution and were only available directly from the printer. Today we’re launching a third edition of this mischievous pataphysical tale — available on Amazon in North America and Europe.
If you missed this little gem, CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON.
View our complete Alphonse Allais Collection
Yes, indeed—Pas de Bile!—another patently absurd volume in Black Scat’s seminal Alphonse Allais Collection.
This will be the book’s first publication in English, with a sublime and inspired translation by the great Doug Skinner. In addition to the complete text of the original Flammarion edition, published in France in 1893, it will include several uncollected stories by Allais. There will also be Skinner’s copious notes on each text, and an informative and entertaining introduction. Throw in this eye-catching cover by Norman Conquest and you’ve got an edition worthy of display in your home or office.
Publication: Late Summer, 2018
And while you’re waiting, be sure to read Alphonse Allais’s LONG LIVE LIFE!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALPHONSE ALLAIS (1854 – 1905) began his career in Paris during the Belle Epoque. He was particularly active at the legendary cabaret Le Chat Noir, where he wrote for and edited the weekly paper. He quickly became known for his deadpan wit and inexhaustible imagination. Among other things, he also exhibited some of the first monochromatic pictures (such as his all-white “First Communion of Chlorotic Girls in the Snow” in 1883) and composed the first silent piece of music: “Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man” (1884). Throughout most of his life, he contributed columns several times a week to Le Journal and Le Sourire. These pieces were collected into twelve volumes, which he called his “Anthumous Works,” between 1892 and 1902. He also published a collection of his monochromes, Album Primo-Avrilesque, in 1897, and a novel, L’affaire Blaireau, in 1899, as well as a few plays. His later years were troubled by debt, a bad marriage, and heavy drinking; he died at 59. He was a crucial influence on Alfred Jarry, as well as on the Surrealists: Breton included him in his Anthology of Black Humor, and Duchamp was reading him on the day he died. Allais’s fascination with wordplay, puns, and holorhymes led Oulipo to call him an “anticipatory plagiarist”; the Pataphysical College dubbed him their “Patacessor.” His books have remained in print in France, and the Académie Alphonse Allais has awarded a literary prize in his honor since 1954.
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Happy New Year!
Here is the first publication in English of the master humorist’s collection, Vive la vie! — stories culled from the pages of Le Chat Noir, packed with madcap (and bawdy) tales of love, adultery, the supernatural, military life, and fake news. These texts are quintessentially Allaisian, spiked with absurd digressions, parenthetical asides, footnotes, puns, jokes, military jargon, Parisian slang, neologisms, dog Latin, literary quotations, and other unmentionable forms of wordplay. ORDER NOW
Le Scat Noir Encyclopædia contains entries from Acrostic to Zwine, and features contributors from around the world—some of whom are distinguished professors at prestigious universities. Others are Nobel Prize winners, while a few have been arrested on felony charges. Discover rare factoids, flash fiction, nubile moon spew, mythological arcana, cabalistic pathogens, pataphysical detritus, scatological schemata, crypto-heuristic scripture, and radical homomorphism. Over 100 pages of profusely illustrated weirdness. ORDER NOW
American Book Review hailed Carla M. Wilson’s first book, IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATIONS, as “profound.” Now her focus turns to film in this dazzling new fiction collection: CURIOUS IMPOSSIBILITIES:. Taking her cue from French New Wave films of the 1960s, Film Noir, and classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s, Wilson constructs a series of homages to ten visionary directors: Fellini, Tarkovsky, Duras, Robbe-Grillet, Godard, Marker, Truffaut, Bergman, Welles, and Ershadi. Her “cinematic riffs” offer creative interpretations of their iconic films that broke stylistic boundaries using non-traditional techniques. ORDER NOW
12 gifted women writers from around the world unveil intimate stories designed to unsettle, excite, transport, and arouse the reader. “As you move through these tales, points of pleasure will be touched, bliss sent in shock waves. You have uncovered sizzling mysteries, becoming swathed by them. These stimulating women’s voices will carry you through feelings and sensations as old as time.” THE NEW URGE READER 3 features Tamara Faith Berger, Elizabeth Bolton, Emma Gibb, Petra Anne Hawk, Marina Kris, Mandy Lee, Karen Moller, Pamela Naruta, Marina Rubin, Aurora Seymour, Sophia Smith, and Rebecca Woolston. ORDER NOW
Le Scat Noir Encyclopædia contains entries from Acrostic to Zwine, and features forty-three contributors from around the globe—some of whom are distinguished professors at prestigious universities. Others are Nobel Prize winners, while a few have been arrested on felony charges. Discover rare factoids, flash fiction, nubile moon spew, mythological arcana, cabalistic pathogens, pataphysical detritus, scatological schemata, crypto-heuristic scripture, and radical homomorphism. Over 100 pages of profusely illustrated weirdness.
Only $12.95 — Available Worldwide on Amazon. CLICK HERE TO ORDER
Contributors include Mark Axelrod, Jeff Bagato, Jacques Bekaert, Doktor Bey, Paulo Brito, Adam Levon Brown, Theodore Carter, Brendan Connell, Norman Conquest, Sean Coolican, Catherine D’Avis, Farewell Debut, Edith Doove, Paul Forristal, Ryan A. Forsythe, Peter Gambaccini, Eckhard Gerdes, Amelia Gorman, Thomas Gresham, Charles Holdefer, James R. Hugunin, Harold Jaffe, Richard Kostelanetz, Rachel Kushner, Terri Lloyd, Harry McCullagh, David Macpherson, Opal Louis Nations, Andy O’Clancy, Peter Payack, Caleb Puckett, Jason E. Rolfe, Paul Rosheim, Stephen Silke, Mercie Pedro e Silva, Doug Skinner, Seth D. Slater, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Robert Wexelblatt, Tom Whalen, Gregg Williard, Carla M. Wilson, and D. Harlan Wilson.
We’ll cheerfully drink to that, whilst launching this new book by France’s 
greatest humorist, Alphonse Allais.
Just in time for the holidays, too, the first publication in English of the master’s collection, Vive la vie! — stories culled from the pages of Le Chat Noir, packed with madcap (and bawdy) tales of love, adultery, the supernatural, military life, and—yes—fake news. These texts are quintessentially Allaisian, spiked with absurd digressions, parenthetical asides, footnotes, puns, jokes, military jargon, Parisian slang, neologisms, dog Latin, literary quotations, and other unmentionable forms of wordplay.
This special Black Scat edition features four additional short stories not included in the original French volume, as well as a lively introduction, illustrations, and fascinating notes on the text by Doug Skinner.
Explosions of laughter guaranteed.
Now available worldwide on Amazon. CLICK HERE to order your copies.
LONG LIVE LIFE!
by Alphonse Allais
Translated from the French by Doug Skinner
Trade paperback; 184 pp., $14
