You can now peruse Le Scat Noir 224. It contains an international roster of artists; my contributions are a page of musical instrument drawings, a translation of Alphonse Allais’s story “The Circumspect Criminal,” and a page from my song “My Pal Satan.” You can find it here!

You probably don’t want to, but here’s a warning, just in case.

The Cocktail Hour is now available! This classic cocktail guide from 1927 contains 224 recipes collected by Marcel Requien, and a running commentary on the proper drink (and etiquette) for every hour of the day by Lucien Farnoux-Reynaud. The bilingual edition from Corps Reviver includes the original French text, an English translation by Doug Skinner and Gaylor Olivier, and 34 new illustrations by Tony Brook. It’s 256 pages! You can order it here!

A cheery tribute to a special friend.

Le Scat Noir 223 is now available! This is the Eros issue, so expect plenty of spicy content. My drawings of musical instruments offer welcome relief from the dirty parts.

The book blog Wuthering Expectations has commented on my translations of Alphonse Allais from time to time. You’ll probably want to read those posts, which you can do over here.

A song about life’s blank spots. Here, as usual, is the beginning.

Issue 222 of Le Scat Noir is now available from Black Scat Books. You can download it for free in the handy PDF format. This issue contains, among other things, another page of my musical instrument drawings and a selection from I Am Sarcey.

Francisque Sarcey was Paris’s most celebrated critic in the 1890s, and one of its most conservative. He famously panned Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi as “a filthy fraud that deserves nothing but the silence of contempt,” and praised light, commercial fare. Not surprisingly, he became an object of derision for young poets and artists. Nobody took the ridicule further than Alphonse Allais, who appropriated Sarcey’s byline for a series of articles in the Bohemian paper Le Chat Noir. Allais’s Sarcey was an obese buffoon who boasted about his appetite, complained about his constipation and impotence, and championed mediocrity in the arts: a memorable comic character who often overshadowed the original.

Doug Skinner has selected, translated, and annotated this famous journalistic prank. It’s now available from Black Scat Books or Amazon.