The “Pocket-Size Golf Card Game,” issued by Built-Rite sometime in the ’50s or ’60s, let you play golf by drawing cards and moving markers. I particularly like the little landscapes for the different holes, the two-color printing, and the golf balls you can punch out from one of the cards.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Black Scat Review #18 is now available! This jam-packed issue contains four pages of my comic strip “Shorten the Classics,” an excerpt from my translation of Alfred Jarry’s play The Pope’s Mustard-Maker, and my translations of poems by Charles Cros, Jules Jouy, and Laurent Tailhade.

You will also find contributions by Mark Axelrod, Angela Buck, Peter Cherches, Catherine D’Avis, Farewell Debut, Eckhard Gerdes, Bob Heman, Charles Holdefer, Rhys Hughes, Esteban Isnardi, Harold Jaffe, Alexander Krivitskiy, Olchar E. Lindsann, Joel Lipman, Laura Mazzenga, Jim McMenamin, Peter McAdam, Doug Rice, Jason E. Rolfe, Paul Rosheim, Gregory Wallace, and Tom Whalen, as well as posthumous offerings from Gautier, Rimbaud, and Verlaine. It’s all edited and designed by Norman Conquest of Black Scat Books, and available from Amazon.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

“Birds of the World” was published in 1961 by Golden Press. It presented 52 birds, in pairs such as Ocean Fliers, Biggest Bills, Nectar Eaters, and Funny Fishermen. The Superb Lyrebird, for example, was paired with its fellow Fabulous Tail, the Common Peafowl. Players were urged to obtain all the cards by collecting them in pairs.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Strings for musical instruments are sold in stores, but not marketed as aggressively as other products. The packaging is relatively unimportant, and the graphic design tends to the generic. Here are some examples of these delightfully liminal designs: packets containing strings for ukulele, banjo ukulele, tenor banjo, cuatro, cavaquinho, and guzheng.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

“Peter Rabbit Rummy,” published by E. E. Fairchild, encouraged players to collect incidents from the story of Peter Rabbit into sets. As the instructions helpfully point out, “For the story of Peter Rabbit, read the cards in sequence from 1 to 10.” There’s no date, but I’d guess they were done in the 1950s. The oddly naive artwork seems to be rendered with colored pencils, which is a nice touch.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I recently picked up a copy of a book called End Papers, by a certain A. Edward Newton, who apparently accumulated a famous book collection in the ’20s. It’s a selection of literary essays and book reviews, published by Little, Brown, and Co. in 1933. I was surprised to find in it a couple of illustrations by Jimmy Hatlo, the cartoonist responsible for “They’ll Do It Every Time” and “Little Iodine.” It’s an unexpected pairing, and no explanation is given. Maybe some magazine editor was responsible.

Here are the two illustrations, as well as the covers of some of Hatlo’s paperbacks from the ’40s and ’50s.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I recently picked up a copy of the Rumford Complete Cook Book, by Lily Haxworth Wallace, published in 1934 by the Rumford Company. Many of the recipes are standard, presented so they can be made with the company’s brand of baking powder. Like many older cookbooks, however, there are some unfamiliar offerings: Marmalade Pudding, Cornstarch Cake, Harlequin Salad, Japanese Eggs. This last consists of hard-boiled eggs, served on a bed of rice with soy sauce. Ms. Wallace has to explain what soy sauce is.

There’s also a section of “Recipes for the Sick,” which is something I hadn’t seen in a cookbook before. The suggestions indicate how much dietary mores have changed since 1934. In particular, the use of raw eggs has declined, and mixing one into a glass of milk is no longer popular as a tonic or hangover remedy.

Here are a few that were new to me:

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The Pope’s Mustard-Maker is now available from Black Scat Books! Translated by Doug Skinner!

Le Moutardier du pape was the last work that Alfred Jarry finished, a few months before his death in 1907. It was one of many operettas he worked on in his last years, and one of the few he finished: a bawdy three-act farce loosely based on the medieval legend of Pope Joan, with a huge cast and lively songs bubbling with rhymes and wordplay.

Readers who know Jarry only from Ubu or his novels may be surprised that he wrote operettas, but his are fully Jarryesque, with his usual gusto for smutty jokes, legend, folklore, puns, wild invention, and popular theater. In his hands, Pope Joan becomes Jane, who runs off with her lover and disguises herself as pope. How will she pass inspection on the slotted chair? What will she do when her husband shows up? And has there ever been another production number celebrating the spiritual virtues of enemas?

This is the first translation of this major work! I also provide an introduction and notes, and scrupulously rendered all of Jarry’s rhyming verse into rhyming verse. Available from Amazon or Black Scat Books.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

True or False, subtitled “Factual Stories of the Impossible,” lasted for two issues in 1958. This is the first, proudly carrying on its cover “an actual unretouched photograph!” that was obviously retouched with a red pen. It was one of the many publications due to the industry of Myron Fass, who began his career as a comic book artist, and went on to specialize in the sensational, with such titles as Quick, Flick, Pic, Uncensored, True Sex Crimes, Jaguar, Shock Tales, and Tales from the Tomb.

In addition to the articles promised on the cover, this issue offers an article on fluoridated water (“Are You One of America’s 28,000,000 Guinea Pigs?”), a photo feature on how to stop hiccups, a Brazilian UFO contactee story, a picture story on “The World’s Only Fishing Pig,” a “Sports Feature” called “A Winning System for Betting,” and articles on religious miracles, shipwreck treasure, and the psychic Cheiro. I don’t know how much of this is either factual or impossible, but it does seem like a lot of entertainment for 35 cents.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Flash-News Illustrated was a monthly that came out in 1964. I assume only two issues were published; searching the internet turns up only these two. It was published by Correspondent News Service, and edited by Earl H. Dempsey and Charles McBain. Further searches turn up nothing about either publisher or editors.

The editorial policy was firmly, even fervently, committed to the sleazy. Articles on orgies, prostitution, strippers, and nudists alternate with news about murders, suicides, and birth defects. As the editorial in the first issue explained, “Here you will find the bizarre, the exciting, the violent, sometimes even the hideous, but you will also find cross-sections of people’s lives that will be much like your own experiences.” This would be particularly apt if you too had a thumb growing from your stomach, or enjoyed partying on the “nude, lewd Riviera.”

The second issue in particular contains a few surprises, among them interviews with Roberto Rossellini (a hatchet piece) and Federico Fellini (a puff piece), and a desert island cartoon by “Severin.” This looks to me like veteran cartoonist John Severin, rather than his equally prolific sister Marie, but perhaps their fans can clarify. I wasn’t aware that either of them drew magazine gags!

(Please click to enlarge.)

(Posted by Doug Skinner.)