Joseph Vargo’s critically acclaimed and best-selling Tarot deck offers a host of gargoyles, vampires, ghosts, and dark angels that give this ancient oracle a unique Gothic flair. All of the Major and Minor Arcana are included in this set of 78 cards, and every card features a unique and original illustration depicting Vargo’s gothic interpretation of the traditional Tarot. Cards are rendered in full color with exquisite detail on heavyweight glossy card stock. The enclosed booklet provides definitions and an easy-to-use pictorial guide of Tarot spreads with instructions for readings. For more in-depth readings and spreads, get The Gothic Tarot Compendium (sold separately).
Product Features
- All cards illustrated by Joseph Vargo.
- Dark and gothic imagery.
Enter the Darkly Splendid World It’s my business to catch the overtones of the soul… the ghosts of beings highly organized enough to have looked on Hell and known the meaning of what they saw. –Richard Upton Pickman, in H.P. Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model”If there is a modern artistic successor to Richard Pickman, surely it must be Joseph Vargo. Vargo draws like H.P Lovecraft writes — his work does more than illustrate or describe; it creates feelings of melancholy and dread that give his works emotional impact, drawing the observer deep into the world of the dark and sinister. In his images of graveyards you can almost smell the cool, damp, moldy air as it gently blows by. That WAS just the wind, right? — or was it something less tangible, something that should have been left deep within the mind, but somehow escaped to pass by almost unnoticed in the night. Many of his creatures are hideous, yet also convey a sense of sympathetic humanity: one just has to ask, what’s it like to be a…
WOW! I bought this deck after seeing the pictures on various sites and on this one as well. Being an admirer of the fantasy realm which is primarily dark, and is full of mythical characters such as vampires, I was quite taken by the images.It was totally worth it! The images are vivid and beautiful in their portrayal of the fantasy dark side. It is definately one of the best decks that I now own!A big WOW to Mr. Vargo! Great Work! Keep it up!
Eerie,dark and accurate! This is a deck that needs to be given broader exposure to the tarot audience in general. This is wonderfully clever in its representation of the dark fantasy world that lives on the periphery of all fans of the genre. I understand this could be taken the wrong way by many, but the title alone should be a warning. It would get a PG rating in theatres.There are vampires, gargoyles, mummies, and a plethora of ghostly images. The other decks done in this fashion seem to fall short on many aspects. Either they focus on one subject, namely vampires and that is it. Not the case with this dark treasury of the arcane. The artist sways away from “kitsch”, quite difficult in the gothic subculture.The deck itself remains loyal to classic Rider-Waite organization. There is some new wisdom provided as well. The overall mood here is is an old gothic horror movie set in some dark corner of Europe. One could imagine Gypsies in the wolfmans forest using these cards. If one…