Christopher Golden, Chris Roberson and Samuel Sattin join Margaret Atwood, Marjorie Liu, Mark Millar and MORE…
I’ve long been fascinated by tarot card reading so I was more than intrigued when I heard about The Literary Tarot — an endeavor coordinated by the nonprofit Brink Literacy Project and funded through Kickstarter that pairs writers and artists with classic literature and tarot concepts and interpretations.
“Working with the storytellers and a diverse and talented art team, Brink Literacy Project has tapped into the magic of classic literature to bring a whole new kind of tarot deck to life,” the organization said. “The original wave of contributors included folks like Margaret Atwood, Vita Ayala, Victor LaValle, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Stephen Graham Jones, Roxane Gay, Mark Millar, and dozens more.”
Each deck comes with a mini-guidebook that includes the meaning of each card, written through the lens of its literary pairing by the contributing writer.
Mark Millar (Jupiter’s Legacy) pairs the Ace of Quills (Swords*) with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
On Tuesday, Brink announced a new wave of contributors, including:
— Fantasy writer Joe Abercrombie, best-selling author of The First Law trilogy.
— Bestselling novelist and comic book writer Christopher Golden, author of novels Ararat, Strangewood, and Of Saints and Shadows and co-creator (with Mike Mignola) of the comic book universe known as the Outerverse.
— Novelist Madeline Miller (Circe and The Song of Achilles).
— Bestselling comics writer Chris Roberson (House of Lost Horizons and iZombie).
— Novelist and comic book writer Samuel Sattin (Bezkamp and Wolfwalkers).
And here are some of the original pairings in the project:
Writer Charlie Jane Anders (Victories Greater Than Death) pairs the Knight of Light (Cups*) with Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones.
— Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale) pairs the Queen of Light (Cups*) with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
— Brian Bendis (Ultimate Spider-Man) pairing War of the Worlds with King of Ink.
— Jonathan Hickman (East of West) pairing Heart of Darkness with Ten of Quills (Swords).
— Tini Howard (X of Swords) pairing The Cold Equations with Temperance.
— Mariah McCourt (Ash & Thorn) pairing Persuasion with Five of Parchment (Pentacles).
— Greg Rucka (Stumptown) pairing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with Knight of Ink (Wands).
The Literary Tarot deck will feature the complete set of all 78 tarot cards. Artists include Samantha Dow, Shan Bennion, Ejiwa “Edge” Ebenebe, Isabel Burke and Bradley Clayton. (* For the minor arcana, each suit is renamed to reflect the literary tools that brought them to life: Ink, Quills, Light and Parchment.)
The campaign will run throughout June. For more info, check out the Kickstarter — which has already raised more than a mind-boggling $550,000.
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