"Grotesque" playing cards is a fully custom deck, which will be printed by the USPCC and designed by Lotrek, creator of "Bicycle Venexiana"

This is the second deck of Half Moon Playing Cards, designed to be the first UnitedCardists Annual Deck.

The UC Annual Deck started as an idea to celebrate the change of ownership in UC. "The new UnitedCardists.com is now owned by a collector and friend of collectors along with "Friends of UC", not a company or business interest. Mike Ratledge of Charleston South Carolina took over ownership of UC in late 2013 after having been a moderator of the forums and bought out the previous owner, allowing the membership to direct the future of UC".

"Grotesque" is the result of this effort. With your help, it will become a reality!

A few words about "Grotesque"

The original meaning of 'Grotesque" was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art, rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century. Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, fantastic, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant and thus is often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such as Halloween masks.

Although there is an immense variety of motifs and figures in Grotesque style, the three main tropes of the grotesque are doubleness, hybridity and metamorphosis.

During Renaissance, artists began to give the tiny faces of the figures in grotesque decorations strange caricatured expressions. In the 17th and 18th centuries the grotesque encompasses a wide field of teratology (science of monsters) and artistic experimentation.

Although grotesque art mainly favored the weird, ugly and monstrous, as an artist I try to bring "Grotesque" to my taste and make a deck which will be at the same time strange and beautiful.

I was always impressed by these haunting figures and about a year ago I decided to make some drawings for a deck called "Grotesque". After a year's nourishing, the deck finally came out and it's ready to begin its KS adventure!

As I did with "Venexiana", I'll be releasing the courts one by one during the campaign. I hope you'll enjoy the ride.

Here's a short interview about the deck to Ivan Choe from "kardify" which I hope you'll find interesting.

http://www.kardify.com/2014/02/kickstarter-7-questions-with-lotrek-of.html

Thank you,

Lotrek

"Grotesque" will be available in two editions: The "Original edition" and the "Limited edition". Each edition will have the same faces but different back. Both editions are going to be printed only once and won't be reprinted. So, what is the difference? Read below.

"Grotesque" Original Edition

The "Original Edition" is what the word says: It's how the deck was conceived. If after the campaign there are decks left. they will be available in the market until they're sold out.

"Grotesque" Limited  Edition

The "Limited Edition" will be available ONLY during the KS campaign and ONLY for KS backers. I will not wholesale after the end of the funding period. I'll produce only the number of decks needed to fulfill all rewards. However as one cannot  determine the exact number of decks coming out of he machine, there may be some decks left. Few of them will be for sale exclusively through my website but at a really unfriendly price. The rest will have the task of dust collecting in my closet. 🙂

SIGNATURE EDITION

Signature edition is a very special one. It has tuck case hand crafted and assembled by me, with gold or silver foil , its own custom seal and a numbered certificate of authenticity signed and dedicated to the owner. Only 60 backers will get this edition which is available in gold (called signature gold) or silver foil (called signature platinum). Each backer can have both colors but not two of the same color. 40 backers have already gotten their decks and I'll release another 20 places 3 days before the end of the campaign. The cost is $60 per deck.

- Standard USPCC stock, magic finish (Bee stock if $40K is reached)

- Embossing on the tuck case

- Casino quality "Bee" stock

- Custom seal on both editions

- Two-way back design

- 1 gaff card

- Limited edition.  These decks will never be reprinted.