Sunday, March 23, 2008

PROMETHEA BY ALAN MOORE AND TAROT

Tarot in comics. There are several comics which feature tarot cards out there in the market. However, my all time favorite is Alan moore's Promethea.


Promethea
Promethea is a young girl whose father is killed by a Christian mob in Alexandria in AD 411. She is taken in hand by the twin gods Thoth and Hermes who tell her that if she goes with them into the Immateria, a plane of existence home to the imagination, she will no longer be just a little girl but a story living eternally. "Promethea" then is manifested in a series of avatars over the 19th and 20th centuries, culminating in the involvement of the lead character, Sophie Bangs.
People become incarnations of Promethea when they or someone close to them channels their identity into an artistic representation of Promethea. During the Crusades,Promethea had two avatars who fought each other. After this, the original Promethea spirit "forgot" and ruled that at any one time, only one human can carry the consciousness of Promethea. All of Promethea's avatars live on forever in the Immateria, retaining their memories and contributing to the consciousness of the active Promethea. (taken from wikipedia)

What i like about the series is that Alan moore shows a lot of work in the symbolic meanings of the cards in the tarot. He also touches a lot on the tree of life as well as how to incorporate the tree of life into the tarot reading.

In compliation, in the book 2 compliation of the series he writes on the 22 cards of the major arcana. He is very very much influenced by Crowley's deck and his attribution is based on the crowley's attribution. where lust is in the 11th position and art is in the position of 8.
Very very good read for those into Tarot and kaballah.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There is a Korean manhwa (comic) titled The Tarot Cafe. It's about a tarot card reader whose clientele includes supernatural beings like talking cat, vampire and magician. Really great artworks.