To be completely honest, I was unsure how I would feel about the Pulp Tarot, created by Todd Alcott. Was this going to be another novelty deck that left me unimpressed and unmoved? I am very happy to report that I feel neither of those things about this deck. Although my personal taste in Tarot design runs to the more ornate and faerie tale themed, I really enjoyed the art and the writing and thought that went into the creation of this deck.

I will start with the Little White Book, or LWB as it has come to be known that is included with the deck. Many times, the LWB in a deck feels very generic, a compilation of meanings and interpretations for each of the cards that could go with any deck at all. This deck, on the other hand, includes a lot of great information about what has come to be known as the Rider Waite Smith Tarot deck (by E. A. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith), which was the deck creator’s inspiration. I deeply appreciate creators who honor their inspiration and provide a bit of historical information as well. The LWB also takes the time to explain how an oracle actually works – it is “An Introduction for the Skeptical,” as stated on page 1.

Speaking of the cards themselves, the imagery is a 78-card collection of collaged pictures from the covers and pages of pulp magazines and book covers. The author shares his process on page 46 of the LWB, “Every one of the images in the Pulp Tarot is a collage of sorts, gleaned from hundreds of different sources and manipulated digitally in PhotoShop.” The artist’s goal was to play with and work with the imagery until each image appeared as though it could have been painted all by the same hand – for that sense of consistency that one likes in a Tarot deck. The pictures on the cards are like alternate universe versions of the Rider Waite Smith deck – if Waite had been the editor of a pulp magazine, and Pamela Colman Smith had been a pulp fiction artist. The resulting deck is filled with the intense colors we associate with these publications, with a very retro feeling.

The deck remains consistent with traditional tarot otherwise. The suited cards are Swords, Wands, Cups, and Pentacles, and the Court cards also retain their original names. For those to whom such things matter – the cards also follow A. E. Waite’s numerical assignations, in which Strength is eight and Justice is eleven. Each of the Major Arcana cards features the name of the card in the form of a book or magazine title, and the number of the card is designed to appear as a volume in a series, for example, Death is number thirteen.

I’ve chosen four cards to discuss individually.  Every Tarot afficionado tends to have several cards that are their favorites, and that they will often use to determine whether they are going to purchase the deck. These are a few of mine: The High Priestess, Strength, 10 of Cups, and Death.

The High Priestess card features a woman wearing a blue velvet capelet and a blue miter-like hat, in keeping with the very blue-ness of Pamela Colman Smith’s rendition. There is also a pomegranate themed wallpaper behind her, a set of keys in front of her, and in one hand she holds a sheaf of papers labeled “TORA” and the other is upraised in a blessing like gesture. She is also smiling broadly at the viewer, which is not something we often see in depictions of this card. In the LWB, Alcott says, “The High Priestess knows things. She’s got wisdom and she makes the rules. But she’s also kind and personable. You could say she’s a mom. Her props – her keys, her paper, her outfit, her moon-shaped brooch, her pomegranate and palm wallpaper – all point to her being a wise keeper of tradition and order.” I like a High Priestess who looks as though she has it all together, and this one certainly does.

The Strength card features a fetching blonde wearing a white beach ensemble, which is meant to show her purity. She leans back and rests her hand on a lion’s mane with the white cosmic lemniscate (infinity symbol) above her head. A red flower for passion adorns her hair. I definitely like this depiction of Strength in which a woman looks as though she is in partnership with the lion rather than struggling against the lion.

The Death card is fascinating to me. This card shows a compilation image which conveys the same meaning as the Rider Waite Smith version: that death comes to us all, regardless of our station in life. The difference in this card however, is its modernity. The skeletal figure wears a tuxedo and doesn’t ride a horse. Instead, his skeletal hand reaches up over the other characters on the card: a woman, a knight, a king, a pope, and a frightened man who flails his arms in the face of death.

Finally, the last card I’ve chosen is a Minor Arcana, the Ten of Cups. I often refer to this card as the happiest in the deck. In the Rider Waite Smith version, a family gathers under a rainbow of 10 cups. Everyone is happy, the children are dancing. This card has a similarly joyful mood, although the image here shows a family bowling night. Someone must have just made a strike, as one child leaps into the air with joy. The rest of the family is elated and cheers him on. Behind the family on the wall are shelves with the cups displayed as bowling trophies. They are winning at life and bowling; they are a joyful unit.

In summation, if you like contemporary renderings of the Tarot with a nineteen fifties feeling, you will love this deck. I used it for several days in my daily Tarot card of the Day readings on Facebook, and the cards rang true, in both image and interpretation. For lovers of the Rider Waite Smith deck who may be looking for something different, this should be part of your collection.