#16/250 arrived earlier this week, and I'm very pleased to give a brief tour of first impressions.
I’ll preface by saying that I really, really like this deck. It’s gorgeous, rough, funny, playful, serious, tactile, disorienting, delightful, deceptively simple; all around, a very cool project. Well done, Sullivan.
Card stock: I’m no professional, so I’l describe this in lay terms. It’s thicker than I expected. It’s much like the Flornoy Noblet deck in size, weight, and finish, with these differences: it’s a little taller (both in terms of length and height of the stacked cards), and a little narrower; a bit thinner (riffles nicely); and there’s a slight texture to the semi-gloss finish. It’s not linen, but slightly similar. It’s a nice compliment to the rough looking paper background on the cards.
Contents: 78-card deck with 2 description cards, in English and French; 2 cards listing the names of the 22 trumps; one presentation card featuring El Matto’s stick, Sullivan’s monogram, edition number in Roman, copyright information, and a curious mark "CCL". The deck arrives wrapped in a beautiful, heavy-stock wrapper and red celo band. inside the wrapper is another white paper band with the TSR symbol. It’s a discrete pleasure to open.
Colors: black line work with red and yellow accents. The pips show the most complete coloration, whilst the trumps and courts are more selective, occasionally. Two of the trumps have an additional, very special color.
Line work: I find the lines rather gorgeous. Some of the borders are kinda wiggly, and some of the perspectives and proportions of the figures are a little incongruous, and give the viewer a sort of distorted effect; they leave me feeling a bit drunk, disoriented. They seem to 'move'.
Some further observations:
There appears to be a range of perspectives employed, and I don't think I’ve noticed this in a single deck before. Most of the cards that feature characters are shown either facing forward or to the side, from straight on but there are some notable exceptions: The Emperor, Empress, appear as if the viewer is slightly below the figures, like you are looking up at them. The Popess is shown in a distinctive ¾ angle; so like not to the side, or straight on, but right in between. These three cards, as well as the Fool, are much more expressive than the rest of the deck. The lines are more detailed. Again, I’m not well versed in art history or theory, so I’m describing these things as best I can.
The Tower in this deck is called La Sagitta, I believe this is a reference to a constellation called the Arrow. That’s new to me.
The figures rising from the earth in Judgement are just hilarious. "I have no idea what I’m doing."
The Valet of Cups is a bag piper enjoying a drink!
The Knight of Batons: what kind of horse is that?!??
The Valets and Knights seem so show a range of cultures, and one Valet is a woman. Very interesting!
The gentleman in the Star is rather ripped
Things I want:
Companion literature (not a lwb! Something more substantial, along the lines of jmd’s Noblet companion), and a tuck- or telescope- box. I want to keep this thing safe for travel, and I really dislike bags. Although I imagine that the leather cases offered at Hermit’s Lamp and the Flornoy boutique designed for the Noblet deck would be a great fit. I’m going to ask Andrew about those shortly.