The Ullage Group is back for another afternoon of the odd and obscure.  This time, we present “Peculiar Popularities”: a diverse selection of now-forgotten-but-once-popular public interests, practices, and fixations. Anthony Matt will survey the short-lived but popular cinematic stage shows of the late 1800’s that anticipated the birth of motion pictures.  He will discuss panoramic […]

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“Los Locos Fotzys,” a 1990 deck from Cromy, in Argentina, requires the player to assemble four cards, which, when placed together, form a picture.  Four characters are featured: a man, a woman, a cat, and a bird; a search for Fotzys led me back to this deck, so they may have been created for it. […]

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The next Ullage Group event, “Peculiar Popularities,” is in preparation.  It will take place on Sunday, March 3, at the Jalopy Theater.  Details will follow. If you happen to be in London the next day (that would be the 4th) at 8 pm, you might pay a visit to Kings Place, 90 York Way.  There, […]

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“Para Volverse Mono,” from Argentina, features monkeys and bananas.  It was given as a premium with the magazine Genios.  The title might be translated (loosely!) as “Go Ape!” (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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When I suggested to Norman Conquest, the CEO of Black Scat Books, that I translate the Captain Cap stories of Alphonse Allais, he was all for it.  However, he also proposed that I draw the cover, which left me with a problem:  what did Captain Cap look like? The French pocket book that my friend […]

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This lovely set of cards from Argentina teaches the uses of common objects.  On the reverse is a question and answer.  The icebox, you will be glad to know, keeps food fresh. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Alphonse Allais was a peerless French humorist, celebrated posthumously by the Surrealists for his elegant style and disturbing imagination.  Among other things, he wrote a series of wonderful stories about his friend Albert Caperon.  In Allais’s hands, “Captain Cap” became an adventurer and inventor, with a disdain for bureaucracy and a heroic thirst for cocktails.  […]

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