The Ritual Abuse Tarot Deck

Holy fucking fuckshit roflmaocopter in the name of Pastor Nox, this is absolutely amazing. A brief introduction is due. If you were a kid in the 80s or 90s, chances are you remember a series of books called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. They were a "children's" collection of stories collected from folklore and retold in short story form by Alvin Schwartz. The stories were mostly meh, but EVERYONE and his brother who saw the books remembers Stephen Gammell's otherworldly illustrations. I loved these books as a kid. They were absolutely horrifying, but in a strange cathartic way...and me being me...well, I thought the illustrations were some of the most beautiful things I ever laid eyes on (up to and including having a crush on the ghost chick from The Haunted House in volume 1).

(my Valentine's date circa 1994)

 Flash forward to 2004, I began writing Nightmarescape after having a series of night terrors reminiscent Gammell's illustrations. I took that world and made it my own. Instead of the smoky abstract haunts that populated Gammell's illustrations, mine were more concrete and aesthetically inspired. Combine those illustrations with black and white photographs of World War I, II, and Vietnam, and we're getting there. Yeah...take those ghostly creatures...and give them weapons...Brutal Disorder Logos helped bring those characters to life with the character sketches you have seen of Curse, Larry Spectre, Banshee, and Pastor Nox. They owe their existence to Stephen Gammell.

 Throughout the years however, I've never seen anyone faithfully recreate that same spirit and aesthetic of artwork...until now. Enter artist Ryan Sheffield of Grapevine, Texas and his Ritual Abuse Tarot Deck. I caught wind of it's existence just a few days ago and have never had any interest in tarot or anything of the sort, but the artwork was too beautiful to pass up. Initially missing out on the Kickstarter, I danced my happy ass on over to his Etsy page like Larry Spectre with a fiddle and purchased a deck. Said deck arrived in the mail today in all its glory in a card protecting tin box with a tarot instruction manual. None of these disappoint in any way whatsoever. Utterly amazing and a job well done. If this guy does custom stuff, I'll be harassing him for a book cover, character pics, or something in the near future. Job well well done.

This is from his Etsy page where you can buy the deck as well as original artwork. His website is at http://ryansheffieldart.com/index.html