Drawn from Black Scat’s eight editions of the master French absurdist, this compendium is a sublime introduction to the wordplay and black humor that shocked and dazzled Bohemian Paris in the raucous “Banquet Years.” The READER includes the celebrated pataphysical text “A Thoroughly Parisian Drama”–a favorite of both André Breton and the Oulipians–as well as […]

[Read more →]

Here’s another postscript to my recent book, 100 Cartoons from Le Chat Noir. I was surprised to find that some of the cartoons in this quintessentially Bohemian paper were reprinted by the old firm of Pellerin, in Épinal, as “Images d’Épinal” intended for children. Here are a couple of them. The Chat Noir cartoons were […]

[Read more →]

As a postscript to my book 100 Cartoons from Le Chat Noir, here are some illustrations by Théophile Steinlen, one of the paper’s more prolific artists. That is, by the way, his art on the cover. A brief bio from the book: Steinlen, Théophile Alexandre (1859-1923): Born in Lausanne, Switzerland. Contributed to Le Rire, Gil Blas, Les […]

[Read more →]