Edward Gorey is probably known to most people for the animations on the title sequence of Mystery!, but he's quite an accomplished illustrator and artist in his own right, with a morbid yet strangely appealing sense of humor (one of his more famous pieces is a littlealphabet called "The Gashlycrumb Tinies," about 26 children and the untimely ends they come to).

The Fantod Pack comes with a booklet by one "Madame Groeda Wyrde" (anagrams are another Gorey favorite), giving instructions for how to read with the deck. The booklet itself is quite funny, with instructions such as the following:

"Interpretation must always depend on the character and circumstances of the person consulting the pack. What might portend a wipe-out for a teenage hotdogger from Yokohama, might warn an octogenarian spinster in Minot, North Dakota, of a fall in the bathtub, though, of course, the results might come to much the same thing."

The artwork on the cards and the cover of the booklet are the classic Gorey style of finely detailed pen-and-ink work. The card backs and the booklet feature a strange little creature known as a 'Figbash'.

The 20 cards themselves feature symbols that I would consider peculiar to Gorey's artwork and style, such as The Urn, The Child (a skeleton!), The Waltzing Mouse, and an untitled card of an armless black doll. The meanings for each, as given in the booklet, are that sinister yet funny mix characteristic of Gorey, predicting such things as a forged letter, green sickness, loss of saliva(!), and other such unwholesome matters. Each card also represents a day or month which, as the booklet notes, "should prove particularly calamitous."   The exception is the Black Doll which has only the particularly grim warning of "What most you fear / Is coming near".

The stock the cards are on is thick and glossy, with unrounded corners, and would shuffle nicely if you wanted to do so. They are moderately large but not unwieldy, measuring about 2-1/2 by 4-3/4 inches.

While you couldn't really do a reading with these cards (I hope!), Edward Gorey fans will probably want to grab it as soon as possible, and even serious cartomancers might be amused by the spoofery.

Note: according to the booklet in my deck, this was issued as a limited edition of 776(!), so it may not be in print anymore. The place to contact to find it, though, is the Gotham Book Mart in New York, who are the primary source of Goreyana. (Alas, they're not online!)
 
Review Copyright 1999 by Brandi Weed, used with permission.