“I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.”
― Steven Wright

I guess it started when I was in college. A friend of mine, a woman I had more than a little crush on, offered to do a Tarot card reading for me. Now I am not what you would call a mystical person, I don’t believe in any supernatural power of a Tarot deck (or much of anything else, really) but I have an open mind. I don’t remember any of what she said… but I do remember enjoying the reading, enjoying it a lot.

So over the many (too many) intervening decades I always had a soft spot for the Tarot cards. As I learned more about the world I came to realize that there can be power in the cards that have nothing to do with supernatural influence. There is wisdom in mythical archetypes… and a set of cards can be a tool to help draw truth out from the subconscious fog.

And then I stumbled across a book at the library – The Creative Tarot by Jessa Crispin. It opened me up to the idea of using a Tarot deck to generate ideas for stories or other fiction. I bought a Rider-Smith-Waite traditional deck and found that it worked surprisingly well.

In the meantime, I discovered an artist, Todd Alcott – that did work I really enjoyed. His most common work are fake pulp book covers based on music. I haven’t bought anything yet – mostly because I like all of it and can’t decide. Take a look at his Etsy Store – there is some great stuff there.

Then I discovered that he had a Kickstarter and had done a Tarot deck in his personal style – The Pulp Tarot. I wanted one, wanted it bad – but I was too late – all the copies were sold.

Then, not too long ago, I was monitoring Todd Alcott’s Instagram Page and discovered he had a second printing of his Tarot deck out. I ordered it immediately.

My deck came in the mail today. It’s pretty damn cool. It’s like having seventy-eight little paintings in a cool box.

I can see myself collecting Tarot decks – I hope not… but maybe….