The Tinker’s Damn Tarot

The Tinker's Damn Tarot, concept and design by Douglas Thornsjo for Duck Soup Productions

For this deck, the creator plays the role of Augustus Freiderich Norwook, a scientist, inventor, and occult researcher at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries who sought to bridge the gap between the worlds of the living and the dead and to update the Tarot into a more modern language. The images on the cards are collages incorporating vintage photographs, film stills, and periodical illustrations. A good number of the cards, and the suits of the Minor Arcana, are renamed to reflect the difference in focus of the nuanced meanings (something I typically take exception to, but it works here). The result is a deck that feels both retro and otherworldly at once.