Jack introduces himself plainly: “My name is Jack and I am a nonsense writer and illustrator from England, based in Japan.” That tone carries straight into Arcane Wildlife Tarot. The deck starts with a simple idea: animals understand cycles without overthinking them. They know when to rest, when to move, when to cause trouble. “We will try to (not) do the same,” he writes.
The Arcane Wildlife Tarot is a beautifully illustrated deck that stays close to traditional tarot. The Major Arcana keeps its weight and direction-changing force, though human figures are replaced with carefully chosen animals whose behaviour does the symbolic work. Jack jokes that when a Major appears, you can “forget your tea”. Something larger is underway. The compositions nod to familiar tarot imagery, but the visual language is distinctly his.
The Minor Arcana is where his background as an award-winning playing card designer really shows. This is a pip deck, but not a sterile one. “Playing cards and tarot are cousins who pretend not to know each other,” he says. “I wanted to reunite them.” Each number card becomes a small scene caught mid-movement. Objects lean, gather, drift. Nothing announces its meaning. The story is happening whether you narrate it or not. For readers used to heavily illustrated minors, this restraint feels deliberate rather than sparse.
Jack has also built a habit of putting part of his post-campaign profits into animal welfare. Because Kickstarter does not allow direct charity fundraising, he does this after each project ends. Past campaigns have supported conservation work with the World Wildlife Fund, tree planting, and endangered species programmes. Much of his support now goes to Animal Refuge Kansai in Japan, where he adopted his rescue cat, Galahad. The money helps with rescue, spaying, and rehoming. It feels less like a campaign promise and more like something he has quietly kept doing.
The Kickstarter campaign has been successfully funded but it’s still available from ¥2,800 for a poker deck and ¥9,000 for a tarot deck.
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