Jess Karlin is dead!

jackdaw*

... or, feeling ignored, figured this was a good way to get people talking about him and his poisonous garbage again ...
 

jema

lol just saw this. I wonder if JK was Maralee too...
 

gregory

jema said:
lol just saw this. I wonder if JK was Maralee too...
Doubt it. But - you never know....
 

Mi-Shell

jackdaw* said:
... or, feeling ignored, figured this was a good way to get people talking about him and his poisonous garbage again ...

Oh Jackdaw!
I am thinking the same thing! :(
 

firecatpickles

Who is Maralee? Now I am thoroughly confused.
 

kapoore

Jess Karlin

Thanks for the post on what happened to Jess Karlin. I would occasionally browse his website, and I bought his book. He did make important contributions, I think, especially in terms of his ideas on reading cards based on elemental qualities. But I do believe he was a borderline personality. He would draw people in and then take great pleasure in trashing them. I got stung several times before I realized he had to be nuts. Still, I can't help wondering what made him decide to kill off his alter ego. Maybe he ran out of victims and turned on himself? Like a lot of borderlines, though, he had a certain allure, and he adored Aleister Crowley. I doubt he has totally left the scene because I believe he had a sincere interest in Tarot.
 

cirom

Both his character and the real person behind it presumably, is the typical internet coward. Hiding behind the anonymity that the internet provides in order to say things that they wouldn't have the guts to say to ones face. Not to mention the overused tactic of notoriety to achieve some relevance and notice. He contacted me several years ago via personal e-mails, to then blatantly change or misquote my responses on his web site. He trashed my work of course, which is ok, many people do, but in doing so he criticized not just the shallowness of my images in terms of tarot "accuracy" which many also do. But then he also assumes to understand the process by which I produce my images and to diminish that also. The first part I accepted because its par for the course and yep he probably knows far more than me about Tarot's history. But the second part he got wrong, by the comments he made he clearly doesn't know as much about Photoshop and digital art as his arrogance leads him to believe. In fact judging by the graphics he produced for his own site, he has in fact a very rudimentary command of the material by which he judges others. Simply put he, the real he as well as the personalities he hides behind, is full of it, and if ever we met in person I would delight in telling him face to face.
 

Zephyros

I'm actually reading his blogspot right now, didn't know about him before this thread, and while I'm sure that there are reasons for hating him that much I do think he has some good insights. I don't particularly care for his style, too abrasive, but I do think that in some things he has good points., especially in deck reviews. Also, his post on a review he did on a certain Tarot deck, I can see the point of his follow up in which he tells that the review was posted here and received many answers, none relating to his actual review.

But that's just my opinion, like I said, I don't know the whole story.
 

gregory

Pity to give him the oxygen of publicity again here :(