Black

Luis Royo, whose gothic-fantasy influence this catalog already met in the Favole's lineage, made the Black Tarot under his own name in 1998: his surreal dark-fantasy painting carrying the majors and courts, with the review's honest disappointment duly recorded, the pips are plain suit-counts, unillustrated. That structure is the deck's confession: it is an artist's showcase on tarot's frame, the showcase magnificent, the frame partly bare. Royo's stature in fantasy art makes the deck significant regardless; his painted cards are the reason it exists and sells, and pip-readers of the Marseille school will not even register the complaint. The catalog's artist-deck shelf holds several such half-illustrated showcases, and honesty about the trade serves buyers better than the usual gloss. It suits Royo's considerable following, dark-fantasy art collectors, Marseille-trained readers immune to plain pips, and Favole owners tracing the influence upstream. Scene-reading RWS loyalists should count the pips before purchasing, as the review kindly did.