It's Saturday morning, July 7th - I hope everyone (in the US!) had a safe and happy Independence Day celebration on Wednesday the Fourth. Welcome to this week's edition of the
Kickstarter Card and Deck Projects Report! I'm your host, Don Boyer, "live" from New York.
Please note that all currency listed is in U.S. Dollars and times for project endings are given in Universal Coordinated Time, or UTC. This is the same as Greenwich Mean Time for all practical purposes, displayed in 24-hour time. Subtract four hours for US Eastern Daylight Time, seven hours for US Pacific Daylight Time. For Standard Time, subtract an additional hour. Most of the U.S. currently uses Daylight Saving Time from the second Sunday in March at 2:00:00 AM until the first Sunday in November at 2:00:00 AM (with a few localized exceptions in places such as some Native American tribal territories and the entire state of Arizona, which do not observe Daylight Saving Time at all).
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Here's "The Rundown" - what's going on with the playing cards projects from last week? New feature: completed projects are shown
in italics, like this.Thu 05 July 2012, 21:57 - Patrick Burke and Ethan Soper's ULTRAVIOLET Playing Cards: $18,532 raised, $15,000 goal, 124% (up 23%). SUCCESSFUL. The deck had a very strong finish, stronger than I thought would happen. Congratulations to Beta17 Design - I sure we're all looking forward to the next deck you create!Sun 8 July 2012, 22:00 - Dave Huber's
Custom Artistic and Photographically Unique Deck of Cards: $51 raised, $15,809 goal, rounded down to 0% (no change). Only 41 hours remain for this beautiful but doomed deck idea. Short of finding an angel investor, it's just not going to happen.
Mon 16 July 2012, 22:30 - Seth Thomas and Spencer Rohan's
War of Currents Playing Cards: $12,177 raised, $8,500 goal, 143% (up 8%). They came up with a surprise campaign for the Fourth of July: 76 slots (as in 1776, of course) in the rewards for 4 decks at $35. I'm guessing they went pretty fast.
Wed 11 July 2012, 14:21 - Ana Cortez'
"The Book of Knowing" - Extraordinary Playing Cards: $3,111 raised, $6,260 goal, 50% (up 21%). In one short week, roughly twelve hundred dollars was raised! Cortez has vow that, Kickstarter or no Kickstarter, this project will be made! With four days left, it's not likely to happen this time around, but she seems to have a growing support base - perhaps a second time around will do the trick for her.
Fri 20 July 2012, 06:59 - Amy McBride and Maija McKnight/Tacoma Makes'
Tacoma Artist Playing Cards: $18,838 raised, $13,000 goal, 145% (up 9%). It looks like some of the overfunding is going into the tuck box - they posted a mock-up of it, complete with custom seal. It's one-color, but in this case that's a good thing; its style reminds me of some vintage decks of the past. Vintage collectors - take note!
Sat 21 July 2012, 22:00 - Mark Baker's
Valor Playing Cards: $953 raised, $7,250 goal, 13% (up 4%). Two weeks remaining and this project just hasn't built up a head of steam. Baker did recently added a new reward - for $8, you can send the deck to an active-duty member of the Armed Forces.
Sun 22 July 2012, 22:52 - Timothy Niou's
CORE: Playing Cards: $9.390 raised, $15,000 goal, 62% (up 22%). Another three-grand-plus and still climbing! Niou's offered his backers another vote on the card design, this time for the court cards. The first design was extremely abstract, while the newer design is still in the minimal, angular style he prefers, but more readily recognizable as court characters. The voting closed on July 3rd, but the results haven't yet been posted. I have to say, if the new courts are voted in, I'll have to reconsider this deck for my own collection.
Mon 23 July 2012, 02:59 - Jeremy Todd and Ali Dalsing's ReDraw artist collective's
ReDraw deck: $1,308 raised, $1,200 goal, 109% (up 32%). They hit their goal with over two weeks to spare - no surprise there, considering how low it was. Zero updates, so no news about overfunding goals. The decks are still terribly expensive, but considering what the Black Rock Collective deck sold for, perhaps it's not really out of the ballpark for an art deck.
Sun 12 Aug 2012, 22:06 - Noel Quiles'
Genesis "Aboriginal" Playing Cards: $3,070 raised, $15,000 goal, 20% (up 13%). This past week has been kind to this deck, with nearly $2,000 in funding pledges. Quiles has been on this message board discussing the aspects of his deck and getting input from collectors and magicians on certain design elements. I'd say the design has improved considerably from when it was first offered. Let's hope the trend continues and that funding kicks into high gear; he's got about five weeks left, and if he continues steadily at this week's pace, he will fall about two grand short of his goal.
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"What's next", you ask? Why, it's "New Business", of course! What new deck projects have sprouted since last week? Well, we have two on deck for you!
Mon 30 July 2012, 03:10 - Straight from San Francisco, CA, "AlieN InK" - also known as Jeremiah DesLonde and Sebastian Brenes - bring you
GalaxY CardS by AlieN InK.
What do I like about this project? Well, the artwork to me is pretty gorgeous - it's all space-themed. Traditional suits have been replaced with blue Earths, gray Moons, yellow Suns and red Ringed planets. These are beautifully rendered in miniature on the number cards and just plain look cool. For the court cards, we get to see images of the card suit progressing into eclipse and growing larger going from Jack to Ace. To me, I think this was an elegant way to make court cards in a deck with celestial bodies rather than human ones. The artwork impresses me, and more than a few people are hoping this is original design work and not a copy-and-paste from somewhere else on the Internet. Have I mentioned how cool it will be to have a "ten of Earths" card or a "seven of Ringed planets" to look at? Astronomy and space buffs would eat this stuff up, no problem.
What do I not like about this project? It appears from their Facebook page that AlieN InK is not just the design firm, but also the manufacturer. This is definitely not a USPC project, or attached to any major card company - they state as much in their home page. Customized suits are a cute novelty, but not well-suited for serious play, despite the designers' suggestion of using the brighter suits (Suns and Ringed planets) as "red" suits and the darker ones (Earths and Moons) as "black" suits. Magicians would be loathe to use these in performance because people would be too taken by the design to give any thought to the tricks being performed, while card flourishers might feel more fifty-fifty (beautiful cards can look good in displays, but again there's the "distracted spectator" factor). They're using what could be a decent stock - French-made textured 310 gsm black-core, similar to what's used on Bicycle decks today - but the fact that it's neither Bicycle nor USPC will put two strikes against this deck in the minds of many collectors. The goal being set so low (only five grand) will lead experienced deck backers to think the cards will be inferior quality compared to the rough average of fifteen grand being the goal for USPC-made deck projects. The card indices are wide rather than narrow, meaning "squeezing" the cards into a decently-concealed hand may be difficult, particularly if you play card games that require large numbers of cards held in-hand. Unless bought in decent quantities, these decks are pretty costly, coming in at $15 for a single deck reward, plus significantly higher costs for signed decks, something most companies give for little or no extra cost. And lastly, at least for me - the funky UppeR CasE LasT LetteR of EacH WorD ThaT Isn'T an ArticlE in the company and deck titles is kind of juvenile (or at the least, amateurish), and calling investors getting a deck "Plaliens" (without even bothering to explain what the word actually means) doesn't help dispel that image. It reminds me way too much of that creepy Skulkor campaign where everyone was being called "brother" and being asked to change their Facebook icon to the Skulkor logo to win prizes.
The project is currently at $1,872 raised on a $5,000 goal, putting them at 37% with three weeks to go.
Sun 20 Aug 2012, 15:23 - the 11-person design team from Mount Laurel, NJ, known as "Mecha-Muse" present the
Spider Kingdoms Playing Card Series (3 decks). Another in a long series of decks that tell a story (without actually telling the story), these decks come in three varieties. We have the "<Red & Blue> 'New World Design'", the "<Black & Silver> 'Dark World Design'", and a Mystery Deck that will only be distributed if they reach the over-funding goal of twenty grand, double the goal needed to succeed.
Thematically, this reminds me a lot of the "Forgotten Realms" campaign setting from the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, with spider kingdoms standing in for elves and drow (dark elves). The court card art is both attractive and distracting, each being a figure standing in front of something resembling stained glass (a web, perhaps?) and a dividing line through the center with a spider symbol in the center (same symbol for all the courts) used to separate the two opposed images found on the tops and bottoms of modern courts. Some may like the line, some may not - it does take a bit of the artwork space away and compared to the court images is pretty boring. The pips have been tweaked - while the hearts and clubs look familiar, the diamonds have a more "shield" shape to them (the bottom half is elongated) and the spades look more like arrowheads.
Price-wise, they're actually not bad at all. While only being sold in pairs in quantities of less than six decks, a single pair is only $14 - $7 each deck. This drops to as low as $5 for bulk purchases. There's also a limited edition art book available - only fifty copies - which will also explain the story behind the decks. The people pledging for it will actually get their names in it as well as the autographs of all eleven designers - and did I mention it comes with three pairs of decks and is only $75? One caveat: there's no mention of who's printing the deck and the goal seems too low for USPC work.
The project currently stands at $1,362 raised on a $10,000 goal, putting this project at 14%.
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And now, this week's "Not Your Average Pack" - your non-standard deck projects. This does not include specialized games using non-standard playing cards, "deck building" games or other collectible card games, but it does include traditional decks using designs other than the standard Anglo-Rouen 52-card deck (such as tarock, tarocchi, skat, hanafuda, etc.), and tarot and other fortune-telling decks.
But before I get to the reports, I have a question for my readers - the decks featured in "Not Your Average Pack" aren't usually the types of decks that people here go for, at least as far as I know. I've been considering dropping this portion of the report, but before I decide, I'd like input from my readers about what they think of the idea and of the section in general (or anything else about my report, for that matter). Please leave replies and post your feedback!
Mon 13 Aug, 11:05 - Chris Alan Martin's
The Chris Martin Tarot: $225/$25K, 1% (up 1%). He got one new backer to join the other two.
Thu 13 Aug 2012, 13:39 - Katenia Keller of Augusta, ME brings you the
Sacred Geometry Deck. It takes a different spin on the traditional tarot design, using strictly geometric paintings to represent the cards of the traditional tarot deck. She completed and published the Major Arcana three years ago and is seeking funding to complete the Minor Arcana and release them as a complete deck. I'd tell you more about the project, but there's not much more written about it - the home page is three brief paragraphs long.
She's including telephone tarot readings with the decks in her reward structure, and this really ratchets up the cost of a deck in the rewards. A single complete deck, both Major and Minor Arcana, with a five-card, hour-long reading will set a backer back to the tune of two hundred dollars. That's right - a two with two more zeroes to keep it company. For just one complete deck. At higher levels she includes artwork, both from the deck and new, original art, but only one reward includes the full deck, with some only offering the Major Arcana deck made in 2009, and none offer more than a single deck. Only 100 Major Arcana decks and 500 combined Major and Minor Arcana decks are being made available. It's a little shocking how costly the rewards are, especially for a project with such a low goal - it currently stands at $470 raised on a goal of $4,400, putting this deck at 11%.
Fri 31 Aug 2012, 18:14 - Noted Los Angeles, CA-based author Dusty White offers up
Astrology Tarot cards: the complete reinvention of the tarot. While the project name is a little unwieldly and out-there, the actual deck is to be called "Ouroboros Cards", named after the image of a snake devouring itself by the tail to form a closed circle. This is a rather ambitious project with lofty claims. The deck is astrology-based, and according to White more accurate than traditional tarot decks, giving clearer and more precise information about future events including details such as precise time of day, location, etc. Furthermore, he states the deck is easier to use than a standard tarot deck and includes instructions on using the deck for everyone pledging for one. Not just written instructions - personal phone calls, video and web instructions are included!
That would likely be the reason for the rather high cost of this deck: the starting-level package for a single deck with instruction is $45. The price gets lower in bulk but never really reaches the "reasonable" level for the common user. Some rewards also include instruction in standard tarot readings by White. Interesting side note: in addition to his writings on tarot and astrology, White is also noted for a series of books of the "how to pick up chicks" variety, including one for women he co-wrote with two women on how to get men to give you whatever you want.
The deck is at $2,815 raised on a whopping $57,750 goal, standing at 5%.
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A final note in closing - I will be on vacation from approximately mid-August until the second week of September. My updates may not be as regular during this time period. It's a big trip for me - I'm heading to south Florida with my fiancee to get married - so I'm sure you'll understand if I'm a little too preoccupied to post as regularly as I usually do.
That's all for now. See you next time and keep on shuffling!
