Interest in both self-care and hobbies/pastimes spiked during the pandemic, and tarot cards—which reside in both worlds—were no exception. Some suppliers have reported sales that tripled during the peak lockdown days and, more significantly, have doubled in the five-year period since 2018.
While licensing drives a very small portion of the market, the number of licensed tarot card decks tied to entertainment/character IP has increased, especially since 2021, although examples have popped up before that. Properties connected to tarot have included films, TV series, comic books, and video games; they often—but not always—incorporate themes of magic, fantasy, witchcraft, or the future. Publishers, board and card game makers, and purveyors of gifts are all involved in the tarot market, although publishers seem to be the key players when it comes to licensed versions to date.
Here are some of the suppliers that have added licensed tarot decks to their assortments, often as part of broader licensing deals:
- Insight Editions is the leader in licensed tarot decks and has been quickly building its list in this space in the last three years. In 2023 it released sets tied to properties including Dark Crystal, Universal Monsters, and Buffy, as well as mega versions of some of its existing decks, including for Labyrinth, Hocus Pocus, Disney Villains, The Lord of the Rings, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. These join many others published between 2020 and 2022, including sets inspired by Fallout, DC Comics, Marvel, Stranger Things, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Elder Scrolls V, Garbage Pail Kids, Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, and Supernatural.
- Geekify introduced a tarot set in 2023 tied to Devolver Digital’s video game property Cult of the Lamb and also offers a deck based on the the 1982 film property The Last Unicorn, which was launched through a successful Kickstarter in 2019.
- Rizzoli published a Marvel tarot deck in September 2023.
- Penguin Random House’s Clarkson Potter imprint released Dungeons & Dragons tarot in May 2022.
- Chronicle Books offers a Game of Thrones tarot deck, which was released in March 2018 and is still available.
The trend looks like it will continue into 2024. Geekify is launching a NeoPets deck in February, for example, while Insight Editions has a Ghostbusters deck and guidebook in the works and Chooseco plans a Choose Your Own Adventure deck, both scheduled for a May 2024 release.
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