I walked into Mickey O’Rourke’s Grille on 10th Avenue sometime in spring of 1983. The place reeked of Beer, Adrenalin and Oldness. More than a century of tavern-dwellers and food service had taken their toll. We were seated in the back, all 22 of us that had walked over from the workshop space, and our waiter came over to the table.
“I’ll have the kippered herring appetizer,” I began.
“You want the shrimp salad,” he shook his head. “Herring’s lousy today.”
“Okay,” I responded. “I think I’d like the blackened redfish for the main course, with brussel sprouts and creamed spinach and a baked potato.”
“Nothing doing,” he said, again shaking his head. “I’m bringing you the fresh mountain trout with a side of fries and a deep dish of vegetable bits in sauce bernaise.”
“Fine,” I said agreeably. “What do you suggest for dessert?”
“Suggest for dessert?” he gasped breathlessly, exchanging a water glass that failed to meet his expectations. “Who has time for suggestions?”
It’s been like that with me this past week. I’m up to my eyeballs in handmade tarot decks. It all started when my friend Frankie Albano showed me his restored version of the Pamela Coleman Smith deck in 1964.
From then on, I’ve wanted to put out my own tarot decks. I’ve started a number of them, but always ran into the same trouble; too expensive to print, especially on card stock.
Now I have an answer. Actually several answers.
First, a layout sheet that works and makes it easy to arrange a deck.
Secondly, a set of blanks on a really powerful heavy white stock that takes watercolor really really well.
Thirdly, a secret method of identifying cards that really, really works and allows you creative control of the image on the card and the text that appears with it.
Fourthly, a set of watercolor pens and brushes that dry fast and make the job go easier. You can’t possibly appreciate the amount of work that goes into an 80 card tarot deck (78 cards plus a title card and a joker) until you do it yourself.
The Fifth Element is something that neither you nor I could have asked for or predicted, but it’s here, and it’s only a few weeks old — it’s a 3 million dollar printing machine that can turn out a coated card in seconds flat, full color and beautiful to behold. Cost of a deck will vary greatly depending on what you want to end up with.
Large runs will be cheaper, but you have to store what hasn’t yet sold.
Small on-demand runs are what I was after, and that’s what I got. This way, I can test a deck before running a lot of them off, and I can run only as many as I’ve sold, or a few more than that, actually.
I thought quite a few folks would want to make their own tarot decks. You can make a one-off deck with blank cards, available on ebay for a couple of bucks, but to create and print your own deck, you need a Plan.
I have such a Plan.
I’ve made up a Tarot Designer’s Starter Kit for $35. Don’t ask what’s in it. I’ve put in everything you need to start, most of which you’d have a tough time finding on your own. Once you get started, you can swing out and do your own thing, or you can get help from me to get all the way through your first tarot deck.
Notice that I’m assuming there will be more than one.
You’ll appreciate anyone’s tarot deck more when you feel the pain, sweating your way through a full 78 card deck. It’s more work than you can imagine.
But it’s also fun, time-consuming and attention-demanding. Perfect for those sleepless nights and tedious days.
You can see what I’ve done with my Tarot Creation System. I have them up on eBay somewhere, and on at least one website, not sure which they’ve hung them on, but mucking about, you’re sure to find them.
To date, I’ve printed up:
Gorby’s Mystic Tarot — $49 A sort of Dutch/Flemish romp in the realm of tarot.
Gorby’s Goddess Tarot — $49 An in-the-flesh romp in the realm of Goddessness.
Gorby’s Orb Tarot — $49 This is a one-card-cut method of selecting Orbs to run!
You might want one deck to save as a collectible — it’s handmade now, but will surely be machine-made soon — and another deck to actually use for readings.
Coming Soon, to be introduced at next Saturday morning’s ICW:
Gorby’s Zombie Tarot — $49 Blue Zombies Destroy Detroit! A cute and fun tarot deck that actually works well and reads true. You can pre-order this deck now if you want to be sure to get one — I’ll be printing up only to orders placed.
Gorby’s Unspecified Pet Tarot — $49 The cutest ever tarot deck! My kid style drawings are colored with bright primaries and secondaries — it’s electric and as I said, cuter than ice cream on apple pie!
Gorby’s Angel Tarot — $49 This deck tells you which angelic reading or which angelic Orb to run right now. It’s a fast way of establishing a great quantum entanglement solution to a present problem. Color-Coded for use with Bardo Runner Orbs.
That’s it for the moment. There are more in the works, now that I have my little Tarot Card Factory. It’s all in the combination of layout, special inks, special paper, special printer, very high-grade scanning and a new type of adhesive. Every element goes to make the handmade tarot deck possible where even a few months ago, it wasn’t.
Full Professional Tarot Deck Production Kit — $99 Everything you need to create a full 80 card deck; you get special paper, adhesive, pens, papers, layout sheets, everything! You will finally be playing with a Full Deck. Nothing else to buy. Um, you will have to pay for the actual printing of the deck, of course….just thought I’d mention it, before someone goes off the deep end, thinking a million copies of the deck wouldn’t cost anything. The production kit simply gets you to the place where you have a deck ready to go to press. It took a whole new generation of technology to make this possible, so if you’ve ever wanted to produce a tarot deck, take advantage of it while it’s possible.
I can guarantee that as soon as it’s realized that we’re doing something that should cost a lot more, it will.
Murphy’s Law? Sure it is, and what isn’t subject to that Great Law doesn’t exist.
See You At The Top!
gorby