PUBLISHED 09 April 2018

Announcing the launch of the Tarot Goblinko Kickstarter by Sean Äaberg.

Kickstarter IS LIVE RIGHT NOW!!!

Here's your musical selection for the post - Tarot Woman by Rainbow

The Kickstarter for the Illustrious Tarot Goblinko by Sean Äaberg will launch on Friday the 13th this month - April, 2018. The Tarot Goblinko will be a luxuriously illustrated tarot deck with accompanying written guide book by Sean Äaberg. The Tarot Goblinko will synthesize the history of tarot into a new syncretic system which will include the 78 cards of the Major & Minor Arcana & then grow with as many new cards as we are able to conjure together. The Tarot Goblinko will dip you into a fantastic world that is familiar & mythological - pulsating with street-level culture illuminated in eye-melting colors that will expand exponentially as you explore it.

I, Sean Äaberg am the creator & artist behind Goblinko’s Dungeon Degenerates - Hand of Doom board game, publisher & editor of PORK magazine & the art director & head designer for Goblinko which is the Art Company I run with my wife Katie Äaberg. I also draw record covers, t-shirts & beer labels & when I’m not drawing & writing I’m homeschooling my three sons in Portland, Oregon.

The Tarot Goblinko

The Tarot Goblinko will be a luxuriously illustrated tarot deck with accompanying written guide book by me, Sean Äaberg, the artist. I have been studying the tarot ever since accidentally reading Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth in my early 20s which cracked open my mind in the correct manner & brought the tarot screaming to life in a way that could not be reversed. I have followed the cosmic winds my entire life & view many of my daily interactions in the way one would read a tarot card. My art inhabits an exaggerated low-fantasy world of a very 70s mentality drawing from this milieu: record covers, underground comix, blacklight posters, gig posters, seedy magazines, role playing games, fanzines, the drug culture, midnight movies, Rock&Roll & their ancestors. The Tarot Goblinko will synthesize the many varieties of tarot decks into a new syncretic system which will include the 78 cards of the Major & Minor Arcana & then grow with as many new cards as we are able to conjure together. The Tarot Goblinko will dip you into a fantastic world that is familiar & mythological - pulsating with street-level culture illuminated in eye-melting colors that will expand exponentially as you explore it.

How The Cards Are Created

My wife Katie Äaberg aligns herself with the universe & draws a card from our Rider-Waite deck & hands it to me. I empty my mind, examine the card & begin to think about what it represents. I consult my extensive occult & art library to see how other people interpret the card giving particular attention to Crowley’s Book of Thoth & Jodorowsky’s the Way of Tarot. I study other tarot decks with the card in mind & note what similarities & differences & stand-out elements there are in varying depictions of the card. Through clouds of various kinds & colors of smoke - I let this sit in my head until it begins to take form. I then discuss the card with Katie & see what she thinks about where I’m headed & from that discussion I create the first pencil sketch on 11”x17” card stock. I show Katie this sketch & we discuss my interpretation of the card & then I make any changes we come up with from this discussion in pencil. I then ink the drawing, first starting with thin black lines, then going in & adding the thick, syrupy blacks which bring the piece together & then going in with stippling & cross-hatching to give the piece contour & texture & it is in this stage that the drawing, having been labored over with tedious but enjoyable inking, comes to life. We then scan the drawing into the computer & color it in photoshop using the blacklight poster & 70s Marvel comics palette I’ve developed over the years.The art is then placed into our Tarot Goblinko card frame, the card is named & it’s ready for the printers!

Sean Äaberg’s art

I am a self-taught artist who grew up in a family of musicians so the first exciting visual art I came across was on record sleeves & I have always associated art with music. My first favorites were the Beatles - Sgt. Peppers & Magical Mystery Tour, Miles Davis - Live Evil, Herbie Hancock - Headhunters & the Rankin Bass production of the Hobbit soundtrack. I would hang out in the sun-filled living room of the house my parents rented in Oakland up from the Rose Garden & draw while listening to records & looking at record sleeves. My family is countercultural & what I do is part of the same methodology & I view my work as a continuation of the great Romantic Countercultural movements. I have been focused on applied conceptual art & art systems my whole life - following the “art into life” ethos of Constructivism, Situationism & Punk which are modern versions of Folk Art - art that is not separate from the people. I grew up in Oakland, California during the time that gave the city its bad reputation & the street-level culture of the town is ever-present in my work. I have climbed my way through all levels of the art world - from graffiti to installation work to happenings to conceptual bands to comics to comedy & everywhere in between with my wife & enabler Katie Äaberg. I have looked at my work as if it was a tarot deck from the beginning, incorporating intense symbolic & color research, geometric modes, allegories & in-jokes all of which provide a layered & intense overlapping of reference & inspiration points.

"Reminds me of John Blanche's old work - a bit weird!" - Rick Priestly

“Sean Äaberg follows in the lowbrow tradition of the late great Ed Roth with his own brand of uncanny psyched-out caricatures. Äaberg's cast of characters are equal parts grotesque & goofy, which he renders with meticulous detail - warts, ooze, rotten teeth & all.” - Juxtapoz magazine

“Sean's work is too damned cool. A nice psychedelic mix of shapes & colour. Every picture has me staring at it like some magic eye picture, trying to see all the great little details going on.” - Good Vs. Evil magazine

"Sean's art is unpredictable & eclectic by design so perhaps a defining aspect is the shape-shifting "trickster" element that informs his approach. He's not afraid to pull his viewer's pants down for laughs, hit below the cultural belt or call the dreaded tickle police to the scene of the crime. For many years he employed the pseudonym "Goblin" & I think this nickname embodied both the playful & sinister aspects of his work. Imagine the Norse god Loki resurrected as a bubble gum chewing Frankenstein's monster with an army of gremlins that have been fed after midnight at his command. That's Sean's defining aspect." - Dennis Dread

"Sean Äaberg’s heavy inks ooze a stark menace that the text descriptions never amount to." -Pookie UK

The Kickstarter

First day Kickstarter backers will receive the Early Bird card as an exclusive gift to the visionary souls supporting this massive art & occult undertaking. As you know, the Early Bird gets the worm! The meaning of this card is that the person who arrives first is the one who is successful. Forethought & immediate & decisive action are rewarded with the goods.

As we raise funds for the Tarot Goblinko we will unlock new Tarot Goblinko cards included in every deck including but not restricted to: The Dragon, The Goblin, The Wizard, The Barbarian, The Balloon, The Bomb, The Alien, The Puppet, The Grinder, The Mushroom, The Dump, Chinatown, The Stone Circle, The Pyramid, The Conspiracy, The Pirate & Medusa.

We will also work to unlock a series of new Tarot Goblinko related projects including -

The Dungeon Degenerates Tarot Expansion Pack with new characters, loot, skills, weaknesses, encounters & more!

The Tarot Goblinko Book written by Sean Äaberg featuring extensive writings on the tarot & expanding on the meaning of the cards in the Tarot Goblinko in a nice, full-color, hardback volume.

The Dungeon Degenerates Tarot Adventure book written by Eric Radey which in combination with the Dungeon Degenerates Tarot Expansion Pack will create a new Dungeon Degenerates mission using the Tarot Goblinko in a nice, full-color, hardback volume.



When we blow the doors off the kickstarter we will have the entire deck printed in blacklight reactive ink, your life will never be the same.

THIS LINK WILL TAKE YOU TO THE TAROT GOBLINKO KICKSTARTER NOW!!!