Review by Tabitha Chamberlain
The Wicked Tarot Playing Cards
By
Marshal Rossi and Pamelina H.
Looking
for Publishing Funds
What happens when you mix a guitar artist and a tarot reader? Wicked! This duo brings together a unique blend of traditional Rider Waite symbolism to life with fantasy art. The combination brings us into a darker realm, creating a world of its own.
The cards are heavily border in array of colors for the Majors. The Minors are bordered as well: red for Cups, blue for Swords, green for Pentacles, and yellow for Wands. The center of the card has a circle portrait with the cards image, a smaller circle at the top with the card number or court title and an oval at the bottom with the title of the card or suit. With the cards planned out to measure 3x5, the borders frame out the image well without distracting to the image itself.
The Majors form this overview of a world that is being created for us with tarot symbols. There are glances of what you would expect to see if you were to land on some foreign planet. Being pulled away from everything that you're familiar with and experiencing something new. The Minors are just suit symbols until you get to the Court.
The
Court depictions are probably one of the best I've seen in years. It
starts creating a visual story similar in style to Ciro Marchetti's
Court. Each Court has the feeling of a tribe, each developing their
own story, detailing their own faults and qualities. This brings you
even further into this world that is being created.
The deck itself is suggestive in some poses with nakedness, but there is no full nudity. Everything else is tastefully covered to show without actually seeing anything. The images mix bright glowing colors with darker aspects that brings a truly unique view to tarot.
The artist changed the backs to make them more reverse friendly, with the similar border from the front surrounding a dark sky, an old tree coming up at an angle on both sides up to a spiraled sun image with tribal work circling that. At the center is what appears to be an eye looking out at you.
Without physically having this deck in hand I can't tell say how well it reads, but have a feeling this will be a good deck for those that have a love of fantasy but fairly new to tarot. For those of us that have be reading tarot for a few years, the artwork is stunning.
The deck is completed, it’s planned out to be a simple deck and little white book. The duo is looking for publishing funds, they do have a KickStarter project going now. You can find it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wickedplayingcards/wicked-tarot-playing-cards
They do also have their own Facebook page found here: https://www.facebook.com/wickedplayingcards