Romeo & Juliet

Above: Limited edition sticker showing no. 461 of 800.

Romeo & Juliet playing cards were published by Kings Wild Project in 2022, illustrated by Jackson Robinson and released as part of the Kings Wild Shorts subscription series. The Spanish-suited edition shown here is no. 461 of 800.

Robinson had already published several classic-literature packs, including Peter Pan, Arthurian and Beowulf. This Spanish-suited edition uses the traditional suits of coins, cups, swords and batons, while keeping the standard corner indices for play, which fits a pack based on a play set in Verona, Italy.

Above: Lady Montague, Four of Coins and Lady Capulet, with Lady Montague shown as a standard double-ended court card and Lady Capulet as a full-length Spanish-suited court card, and standard corner indices for play.

The Spanish-suited limited edition uses a red foiled numbered box and shows the characters full-length, while the standard edition uses a white foiled tuck case and familiar 52-card layout with double-ended court cards. See the boxes .

Robinson also shared the pack’s development through livestreamed drawing sessions, where he worked through the illustrations and discussed his technique. In one stream he explained that his wife suggested the jokers: one with a vial of poison and the other with a dagger. "Spoiler alert," he said, those are the tools Romeo and Juliet use to kill themselves at the end of the play, which fits the line "Parting is such sweet sorrow".

The artwork is decorative rather than a historically exact view of Renaissance Verona. The characters are drawn in a theatrical style on a professional pen display, with Robinson tracing and refining the figures on screen.