Alien Arcana Tarot

Above: Strange Forms Kickstarter campaign promotional graphic.

Strange Forms Kickstarter campaign promotional graphic

The front of the box, featuring the alien from the film Alien.

Above: Front of the Alien Arcana box.

West Yorkshire-based artist Roy Huteson Stewart's latest pop-culture mashup blends themes from the 1979 cult classic Alien film franchise with the symbology of the tarot. The project was brought to life after a successful Kickstarter campaign, where Stewart raised £2,446 from 63 backers.

Above: Justice depicting Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) holding a flamethrower, Death, the Magician and the Emperor cards. The artwork resembles Pamela Colman Smith's Rider-Waite illustrations.

The Kickstarter campaign funded the creation of 44 cards split into two 22 card sets, one for Alien and another for Alien³. These cards also complement Stewart’s previously published Strange Forms: Aliens Tarot Deck (for the second film in the franchise) and his inclusion into the Aliens 35th Anniversary Art Book (See the cards).

Stewart explains that his tarot deck “draws connections between the hero’s journey, semiotics and the film’s Jungian archetypes. This illustration is an examination of storytelling narrative using the medium of tarot, for these images are symbols that are deep within all of us.”

Stewart digitally created the illustrations to follow the Rider-Waite style, with the symbols mirroring those found in the Pamela Colman Smith artwork. The deck includes characters and scenes from the films, including updated taglines “In space no one can hear you tarot” instead of “In space no one can hear you scream”. The deck includes extra variant cards of the Fool, the World, the Moon among others.

The Kickstarter also includes a colouring book featuring all the artwork from all three decks plus brief interpretations. The back of the book encourages readers to “release your inner child and get creative with crayons and colour pencils, with your own Xenomorphic Strange Form Tarot Colour Book”.”

The deck is printed on standard sized tarot cards by Make Playing Cards (MPC). You can buy them on Roy Huteson Stewart's website ➤