Lo Scarabeo grows more cartoonish and trivial every time I look--

I find myself more and more disappointed with the Lo Scarabeo deck and its cartoonish version of so many cards. I bought it a few months back since it purported to combine the main three traditions and I wanted to be open to that in a deck. Now, though, when I see the knaves (called knaves on the cards, which they call princesses in the LWB) looking like either stoned anime dolls (pentacles) or appearing so stupid as to be losing clothing while standing there looking too stupid to keep clothes on while wielding a sword (swords) (do you hear that I keep seeing it as stupidity resulting in nudity and danger, whereas they call it 'practice/pretense'?), or The Tower looking sort of 'golly gee cartoon characters are falling down uhoh', or the surfer-dude knights, I feel nothing in the reading but criticism at the banality of it. I like a few of the cards, most notably the four of cups and its presentation of an ideal four of cups on the wall, and the five of wands and its disputatious fellows, and The Fool, and the eight of chalices, and the cutoff heads on the queen and king of swords, and a few others, but more and more I never want to see some of these foolish-appearing cards again. I combined this deck with the Universal Waite to pad it out and increase the choices, but I still feel like shredding some of them like a crazy person right now. Has anyone else run into this? I do actually like some of other decks that have a could-be-seen-as-cartoon art, like the Pagan Tarot or Dark Angels or other artsy ones. I may dislike the look of some of the Universal Fantasy cards as visually ugly to me, but I do not find it so trite and to be banal and babyish to me, as I do with the Lo Scarabeo.

Anyone else?

EDIT TO ADD: I do not feel that it is the instinctive right thing for me to then read the cards that bug me in the sense of (one example only here)'the knave of swords comes up, so be careful about situations where your, um, skill or lack of skill with a sword or brains could lead you into losing your hat and showing your breast and looking vulnerable'--it just doesn't feel to me like 'a card of vulnerability and whatever', so much as a card of 'huh, I've seen a lot better cards and this one just gives me nothing other than "what the hell is wrong with you, cartoon character?" ' and that applies to too many of the cards in this deck for me now. I have looked at them openmindedly and done readings of the cards I dislike out loud to myself, and they do not seem to be huge deep meaningful things to me so much as pissing me off and making me feel like the 'modern' versions of these cards give me nothing of personal meaning. Maybe it's as simple as 'not my thing and I'm disappointed because I tried and bought it and some of it is good and some isn't, just like real life'. Now I am trying to figure how to use the partial deck which I do find meaningful, but feel like it makes no sense at all to create a stacked deck for any reason--

No one has any similar or completely different opinion of this deck, or of another that grew to bug them...? I'm surprised.

I have very mixed feelings about this deck as well. I saw it on the Internet (Here: http://susynblairhunt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2tarot-diamond.jpg ) only as a picture of unframed cards arranged in diamond shape, and I like the airy water color feeling, the sense of movement. I tracked the deck down and ordered it, and I still find the concept fascinating. But yes, the deck is cartoonish, and some cards are embarrassing to look at. The artist is skilled and has an easy hand, but there is too much cuteness for me.

I find that the arbitrary borders that have no connection to the deck whatsoever are very disturbing, and after I performed the liberating ritual of borderectomy, I liked the deck better. I even made a really pretty tin for it because now it's tiny. I don't regret that I bought it and still like the idea and the concept... BUT. I don't read with it, I just use it as comparison tool.

Interestingly, almost all of those cards in the picture are ones I find attractive or at least neutral-okay, and seeing them without the border and all the tedious text in six languages does improve them. I just get stuck on the fact that I NEVER want to see some of the cards again, and they are not the ones that people usually fear or resist like Death or three of swords or the nine of swords (which actually very much like in this deck) etc., but the ones you call ''embarrassing to look at". Thanks for letting me know your views on this--it feels less isolating to me!

I still need to figure out if I want to do something to the deck like take off borders, but since I still hate some of the more mawkish cards, I'd never use them anyhow--so I won't take the borders off. Maybe I can just use the dozen or two which I like as meditative images, but then again that's what I would use a 'real' intact tarot deck for...

Nemia said:

I have very mixed feelings about this deck as well. I saw it on the Internet (Here: http://susynblairhunt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2tarot-diamond.jpg ) only as a picture of unframed cards arranged in diamond shape, and I like the airy water color feeling, the sense of movement. I tracked the deck down and ordered it, and I still find the concept fascinating. But yes, the deck is cartoonish, and some cards are embarrassing to look at. The artist is skilled and has an easy hand, but there is too much cuteness for me.

I find that the arbitrary borders that have no connection to the deck whatsoever are very disturbing, and after I performed the liberating ritual of borderectomy, I liked the deck better. I even made a really pretty tin for it because now it's tiny. I don't regret that I bought it and still like the idea and the concept... BUT. I don't read with it, I just use it as comparison tool.

Click to expand...

edited, but leaving this http://youtu.be/gQi7gTpxnik

lefty said:

I found a video showing the deck. http://youtu.be/gQi7gTpxnik

I have to say, I have some very cartoonish decks compared this one. The Star and one other card remind me that I have to put more weight on the bar when I do squats or stiff legged dead lifts, if I want to have glutes like they do. That isn't really helping the discussion, but I thought the video would help people who don't have the deck.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link so folks can see the whole deck. I also have other decks that are cartoonish, but somehow much less buffoonish, if you know what I mean--like, The Sun card in this deck looks to me like wasted fratboy crowned as the drinking king or something at a party, and that is not what I usually take it to mean--whereas Universal Fantasy or Dark Angels or Pagan Tarot or even Ludy Lescot all seem to come across with more gravitas and dignity to me, even in cartoon version--

edited

lefty said:

Yes, I do not like that 'The Sun' at all-- and that was just the looking at it for the moment it is on in the video. I think there are a lot of components to the sum total of a work of art's aesthetic, and missing the mark on one can make it really repulsive.

Click to expand...

I agree, and find that there are some decks whose art I am not fond of (Tarot of the Old Path, and Universal Fantasy, offhand) which still retain meaning for me especially when reading for others--in the Old Path, some of the cards look like leering and creepy folks, but to me, that means the card advises against that or to be aware of that etc., whereas in this Lo Scarabeo deck, I find that much of it only makes me think the artist is jerky or too 'hipster' for me or something, and I do not get "the meaning of the card" since it seems too contaminated with the ego of the artist--not 'ego' in the sense of 'swelled head' or 'egotistical', but in the sense of ego and his/her own personal intrusions versus the archtypal meanings. I am sure there is a degree of this in every deck, but for whatever reasons, this one bugs me on too many counts!

I have this deck, too, and I can understand what you're saying. I like it, but yeah, it's too comic-bookish for daily use. Honestly? It doesn't come off so much as ugly as it does shallow. There's no depth there, at least for me. The RWS may not have the best art but it's crammed full of symbols and doesn't look like 78 greeting cards stacked in a bag.

What gets me with it more than the art is the cardstock. It's thin and feels very flimsy which is why I'm reluctant to actually use this deck. It's pretty, but I can also see where some people may find some images as offensive.

I think I paid less than $10 for mine, and I have the velvet bag edition and it came with the original box. I have the lwb with it too, but never really paid attention to it.

If you don't want to watch the video to see all the cards, they're also here: http://www.albideuter.de/html/lo_scarabeo.html

I don't have this deck and it's not one I'd buy, as the comic-book style art doesn't appeal to me. But as I was scrolling through the cards on the site above, I wasn't getting the visceral reaction that donnalee describes. I had one or two thoughts about badly done breast implants but nothing was hitting me as really stupid... UNTIL...

http://www.albideuter.de/html/lo_scarabeo_45.html

Is it just me or do they look like zoned-out cultists stepping up for their suicide dose? Maybe it's my age. The Jonestown massacre was one of the first really horrifying news stories for me (late 1970s - over 900 people died in a mass ritual suicide).

So yeah... not a deck I would want.