Signed with Signed Drawing by Charles Bukowski (#13): Laugh Literary And Man The Humping Guns No. 1, Charles Bukowski as Publisher, Poet and Editor

Published in 1969, this copy of Laugh Literary And Man The Humping Guns No. 1 features Bukowski's signature and a signed drawing by Charles Bukowski on the inside of the front cover.

The page is shared with signatures and drawings by Harold Norse and Neeli Cherry. It is also numbered #13 of an unknown number of what I assume are special copies. I have seen two other copies that were numbered and formatted in the same manner, but have never learned anything about what the numbering indicates.

This copy is in Near Fine condition with wear and what looks like dust that is now embedded in the ink/paper. There are also small bumps on the corners and the staples have oxidized.

In 1969, Bukowski and sidekick Neeli Cherry decided they wanted to become publishers. They had a plan where they would sell the majority of the copies to university libraries across the country, a scam Bukowski learned from LouJon Press founder and scammer Jon Edgar Webb.

Only three volumes would be published, this being the first. It is subtitled:

“In Disgust With Poetry Chicago, With the Dull Dumpling Pattycake Safe Creeleys, Olsons, Dickeys, Merwins, Nemerous and Merediths.”

In addition to four printed drawings, this issue included two Bukowski poems:

I Thought I Was Going To Get Some
The Grand Pricks Of The Hob-Nailed Sun

I Thought I Was Going To Get Some would not be published again for 46 years when it was collected in Storm for the Living and the Dead (2017).

The Grand Pricks Of The Hob-Nailed Sun has yet to be published again.

In addition to two poems by Bukowski, this issue includes contributions by Harold Norse, Steve Richmond, John Thomas, William Wantling, Doug Blazek, Jack Micheline and Neeli Cherry.

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