In 1977 I designed a deck of playing cards in the transformation style called Sutherland-Brown Playing Cards. The project stemmed from a hand-drawn deck I designed for an Art History class at the University of California, Santa Cruz that I then turned into something bigger and more commercial in 1977. They were printed in sheets, cut by a big paper cutter and then round cornered in stacks of each card. I collated them into decks and also glued the cover and backs on the boxes (pathetic!).

Six years later I came out with Palladin Parlour and Playing Cards, a more refined version of the Sutherland-Brown deck that had more shading but the same imagery (except for one card) and they were printed by a real playing card printer and boxed as both single decks and doubled decks in lift top boxes.

I saved my sketches and put them into a binder right after designing the first deck, and used rubber cement glue, which yellowed some of the paper. I added sketches and images from reworking the cards for the Palladin version, but most of the sketches are from the first version.

Here are photos of the sketchbook to be auctioned at the 52 Plus Joker convention in Cleveland on October 14, 2023. You can send in bids by proxy in advance.