The Stick Figure Tarot

It was about 6 years ago that the idea of the "stick figure tarot" came to mind. I'm not sure if I meant it to be tribute or parody, and to some extent I'm still not. I think what inspired me to think of it at all were Zelazny's _Amber_ series and also Anderson's _Tarot_ series, the latter probably more than the former, but it's hard to say. It's been a while.

In any case there have been a number of considerations to be considered over time - not the least of which concerns style. Part of the point of doing this is to create "a simplified card, in which the art does not influence the meaning" of each card. I note that in quotes, because if I had a mission statement, that would be it. But that brings up the point of "how much background" do you put in a card? Imagine a stick-figure version of the Mona Lisa. In there original, there is a background, and there's certainly details of dress and hair and such. How much of that do you try and communicate when you make the translation to stick-figures? I could justify just doing the face alone, since that's all people ever remember.

In any case, it's a difficult issue, one that I don't think I ever fully resolved.

Also, while the series is based on the Rider-Waite set, not all cards are literally interpreted; notably some of the Major Arcanum. Some of the more Christian symbolism has been replaced with more modern symbolism, and instead of a cross, I have chosen the (to my knowledge) neutral infinity symbol. I hope nobody minds. There's also the fact that a cross is easily confused for anything else drawn as a stick figure. So there were some small artistic issues to consider.

Imagine my surprise (and disappointment) to find that this had been done before, and better. His cards, however, are not on the net anymore, which leaves me.

I'm still working on scanning all the cards. Here's a sample:

All images © Copyright 2003, by David Bedno. Please respect my work.

Notes on the art (as it were):

All of these were hand-drawn in ballpoint pen onto 3x5 file cards and then scanned in at 300dpi, in grayscale. I did a bit of post-scan editing to clear up a few stray lines, and to darken a couple of lines here or there, where they didn't scan all that well. There are probably some fancy photoshop tricks I could have done, but I'm not familiar enough with it to know what they are.

The original images are indeed 3x5. The images on the main page are reduced 25% in size. I'm thinking that maybe I'll leave those, and modify the links a bit, so as to include the meanings as well. That's a page design decision I'd love your comments on.

The Peanuts Tarot, alas, fell victim to those pesky copyright laws. The Crystal tarot (as created by Crystal) can be found here.

David Bedno (drseuss@seuss.org).