The Future of Buffy Is in The Cards

-- the linster from AfterEllen.com

Being the curious type, occasionally I go to psychic fairs and have my cards read or find out what my cats are thinking or let someone intuit my aura. OK, I'm not sure what that means, but I get a nice bluish-green printout and assurances that I'm "in a good place," so I figure that's worth $10 now and then.

As a result, friends tend to email me with news from the woo-woo world, whether interesting or weird or just plain outrageous. But I have to say the best thing I've received lately came from a tarot fan with the note, "I think a hot woman is in your future."

Yes, that's exactly who you think it is. The card is part of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer tarot, which Dark Horse Comics announced at  New York Comic Con. Paul Lee, longtime cover artist for Buffy comics, is designing the deck with tarot guru Rachel Pollack. Pollack, who's been a Buffy fan for years, also is writing the deck's guidebook, which will explain how the cards fit into the Buffyverse.

 

"The idea is it's a tarot deck created for [use by] slayers in their task and for their allies in struggling against the vampires and the demons," Pollack said. "So we've constructed a whole kind of world for this in which it's not simply characters from the story, it's actually cards that those characters actually use."

 

 

What that means is that we won't get just a collector's deck using Buffy character pictures; it's actually a working tarot deck. Not every character will appear in the deck, but both Buffy and Willow will be on several different cards. Elements from the TV show and the Season 8 comic will be incorporated into the cards, such as the relationship between Buffy and Spike.

 

 

Pollack indicated that the slayer's tarot also will point to future story lines. "There are little hints of what will come, which obviously we can't talk about now. Hopefully people will be intrigued, and maybe even later on look back and say, 'Oh that's what that card meant.'"

 

 

I'm sad to report that the Lovers card will picture Buffy and Angel instead of Willow and Tara, but hopefully we'll see our favorite Wiccans elsewhere in the deck when it's released in August. Meanwhile, any predictions for the other cards? Xander as the Fool, maybe? The two faces of Oz on the Moon card?

 

Comments

[Music Videos]

very graphic!!

[DSchneider]

I have this thought that entertainment corporations could make more money with the gaming side of tarot than they would always stressing the fortune telling aspects. Buffy is good for that type of tarot, but in France where tarot is recognized as a game there are all kinds of pop culture tarots. There's even been a Disney tarot published for game playing in France. If American companies knew what the French know about tarot cards, that they could be used for card games, tarot could be like all the different versions of the Monopoly boardgame on the market. We could buy tarot decks based on Star Wars, Elvis, Betty Boop, Looney Tunes, the Simpsons, Scooby Doo and much more!