Do you feel the authors of guidebooks get too much credit?

[danielnogo]

Sometimes when I get a tarot or oracle set, it will say that it is by so and so author, and then I find out that the author only wrote the book and had nothing to do with the art. I kinda feel like the artist name should be in bold and then below that it should say "and guidebook by..."

I feel like doing the art is the hardest part, come on you can write a passage about what an image means in thirty minutes. I dont wanna undermine the part of the book author but I feel it is overstated. When I see something like Oracle of Shadows and Light by Lucy Cavendish, it makes me think the art and book is by that person, its kind of a disappointment that the person who actually made the entire deck barely gets any credit. You can have just a deck of cards and it will still be an oracle without a book attached, you cant have just a book and call it an oracle.

What do you think?

 

[BrownBear]

I have to respectfully disagree. Writing a short passage can be much much harder than writing something of length. I would bet you money that the writers spend far more than 30 minutes writing the text for each card.

 

[danielnogo]

I have to respectfully disagree. Writing a short passage can be much much harder than writing something of length. I would bet you money that the writers spend far more than 30 minutes writing the text for each card.

Harder than painting 78 cards? I may be undermining the effort the writer puts in, but so much more that giving credit to the artist is an afterthought?

 

[BrownBear]

Harder than painting 78 cards? I may be undermining the effort the writer puts in, but so much more that giving credit to the artist is an afterthought?

The writer also helps create the "system" of the deck, does research, etc.

we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[mrpants]

I think this varies widely, between decks. I've recently been reading the Tarot of the Cat People Traveler's Report, written by the deck's creator (Kuykendall), which is a fine example of how a book and deck can work really well together. On the other hand, you also have companies like Lo Scarabeo (no disrespect, by any means! I love you guys!) that outsource, if you will, the LWB to another professional on hand. In the end, it's up to the reader to decide how they are to read, so maybe this is a non-issue.

 

[Cenozoic]

Making an artwork can take a very long time, and times it by 78 artworks, and it definitely takes a lot longer than making the LWB.

If the author had a bigger bolder name than the artist, it could have been because it was a commissioned deck, in which the artist was paid to do the artwork for a client. The client could be a tarot guidebook author, or someone else who had a vision but needed the skills and expertise that the artist had. Sometimes the artist has no clue how to read tarot/oracles themselves, so they need guidance and feedback from the client on how to proceed with it. This could be why the author will have a bigger name over the artist.

 

[tarotbear]

You bought the deck: The deck was created by an artist - The artist gets the credit. The author of the LWB is not the star of the show: the Art is. You bought the deck for the Art, not the literature.

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine wrote several musicals together - Steve the music and lyrics, James the book. However, you will find them listed as "Stephen Sondheim's musical 'Sunday in the Park with George'."

 

[danielnogo]

You bought the deck: The deck was created by an artist - The artist gets the credit. The author of the LWB is not the star of the show: the Art is. You bought the deck for the Art, not the literature.

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine wrote several musicals together - Steve the music and lyrics, James the book. However, you will find them listed as "Stephen Sondheim's musical 'Sunday in the Park with George'."

I completely agree with you, but it doesnt seem to happen often, especially when the cards come with a lengthy book and not just a LWB, the authors name is usually in big letters and the artist, if mentioned at all on the box, is in much smaller writing, bothers me a little being an artist.

 

[Grizabella]

The creators of decks usually work closely with the writers of the books, of course. If not, then they do at least give their permission that so-and-so write the longer book, meaning they trust the writer can do justice to that. Not every artist who works in paint or things like that is capable of writing a book, even if it is their own deck the book is about. I don't think the writers get too much credit at all.

 

[nisaba]

Harder than painting 78 cards? I may be undermining the effort the writer puts in, but so much more that giving credit to the artist is an afterthought?

What if the deck is the whole idea of the person who wrote the book, but they just didn't have the artistic skills to make the cards they envisioned look right, so they got someone more skilled than they were, to make their visions come out of their heads and get onto the paper by telling them what they wanted, looking at rough sketches, and asking for changes?

I think this happens fairly often in collaborative decks - I know of at least a couple where the artist was employed just as a set of skills to make the author's vision come about.