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

[rwcarter]

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).

Now that you mention it, yeah, they do look like they're lining up to get their dose of Kool-Aid and directly from the fount too....

 

[karen0205]

It seems like they just want to put deck after deck out for sale without
really putting effort into the images. I don't mind the style of the deck
it's the breast implants and the king and queen of Swords with the decapitated
heads in their hands that I really have issues with. The zombie cult followers
are lame too. You wonder if ANYONE who reads tarot has any input into
the designs. Doesn't seem like it.

 

[donnalee]

Yup, I paid a certain percentage off for it new in the annual Llewellyn sale but it may still have been over US$20.00. I can do without it, pretty much. I can always keep the few I like, like ten of pentacles and even five and nine of swords (I don't want to pin up the cards I like or respect as if in a reading, since a few of them are toughies), and put the rest up for giveaway in the need-a-card thread maybe...yeah, shallow, sadly. I don't mind ugly, but I need ugly with depth or meaning--just like real life!!!!

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.