Bleu Cat

Beth Seilonen's third deck in this catalog confirms her as one of the indie tradition's most prolific small-press hands: after the raven's orthodoxy and the jester's whimsy, the Bleu Cat enters what the review rightly calls the elite group of cat tarots, feline personality carrying the deck, blue cats at their distinctive antics across a full structure. Seilonen's method repeats productively: one strong visual conceit, traditional bones, modest production, deck after deck. In the catalog's well-populated cattery the Bleu Cat holds the personality-forward corner: less observational than the Mystical Cats, less magickal than the Black Cats, more purely charmed by cat-ness itself as the reading medium. Seilonen collectors track her output the way birders keep lists. It suits cat-deck completists, Seilonen's following adding a third, personality-readers who divine by mannerism, and blue-palette aesthetes. The dog constituency has finally been served elsewhere in the catalog and can stop writing letters.