Guess what was just delivered from Amazon? That's right The Hazbin Hotel Bar Book: Drinks and Snacks for Wayward Sinners, and Hazbin Hotel: The Official Coloring Book, both of which we'll be looking at after I open my 10 card packs from the Blaster Boxes tonight
So I was looking on Amazon, and I found another Hazbin Hotel book coming out from Insight Editions, called "Hazbin Hotel: Redemption & Rehabilitation: A Sinner's Guided Journal" with a publication date set for January 5th, 2027.
New from Insight Editions, this one dives straight into the biological secrets behind the TMNT and treats them like they actually exist. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Anatomy of a Mutant is written by Patrick Ehlers and brought to life through the striking artwork of Mateus Santolouco. It leans fully into that mix of science, storytelling, and fandom that makes these books so hard to put down.
I…
Join me on a journey through the fantabulous world of Oz to explore the Official Wicked Tarot Deck and Guidebook, authored by Casey Gilly and illustrated by Cinthya Álvarez. Plus, don't miss my exclusive interview with Casey Gilly to learn more about her experience creating the Wicked guidebook, including its three customizified spreads, as well as her other @insighteditions projects!
Limited. This Tarot is...it's Limited (A Review of the Wicked Tarot
Look, I’m sorry, but G(a)linda is not the Queen of Coins, okay? She’s just not.
Okay, I got that out.
I've been a fan of Wicked for almost exactly twenty-two years (sweet Oz). I saw Idina perform in the Macy's parade in 2003, and as a theater kid, Wicked became my life. I fell for The Broadway Tarot mostly because of the Wicked card, and have had this preordered since it popped up. And when I opened the box, the backs astonished me.
The rest of the deck? It's...mixed.
I love Casey GIlly’s work, don’t get me wrong. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Tarot is how I got here, and I love it very much. But there are constraints that make this a less spectacular deck in many ways—although the cards are absolutely freaking gorgeous—They do integrate both the first and second film, but I highly doubt Gilly had much more to work with than the musical’s second half, with no footage or definite “kept/not kept” threads to work with. So, there’s a significant preference for the first film (and I almost wrote “first half of the film” so take that as you will.
The Wicked deck suffers from some Insight-typical issues. The naming of the suits makes your head tilt at a ninety-degree angle—“Brooms,” “Flowers,” “Yellow Bricks,” and “Coins.”—and there is so much repetition. Nessa is both the Empress and the Queen of Flowers—when if you have to double cast, why not Coins???—and Elphaba is…everything.
Now, there is use of secondary characters. Planee, represent! And I’m a huge fan of seeing Nessa in multiple cards, because wheelchair. But even with the constraints But, as I said, there’s a focus on the first film without utilizing even Frexpar (Which, by the way, anyone else feel slightly annoyed that the governorship Is his in the musical, when in the book it goes through Melena’s line?) or Dulce Bear. I genuinely cannot believe they invented the Bear for the musical and then didn’t require her to show up. But also, hey, Empress! You could use Melena, too, even if she’s not technically named. The characters they do use, like Morrible and Dr. Dillamond appear a few times. Out of seventy-eight cards twenty-six do not have characters. Two of those are crowd scenes. Two or three of the twenty-two cards Elphaba is in show only her hand. G(a)linda comes in at fourteen, Fiyero at five, if we count Scarecrow. From there it’s between two and three. Even the Wizard gets three—two are Court Cards. We’ll get there—The Lion appears only as a cub. Dorothy only as a Page. You see where I’m going here.
The non-character cards aren’t pips. They are, mostly, scenes. But this is where the strange suits cause a problem. Someone explain this Three of Yellow Bricks (Swords) to me. (I mean, I get it. Sort of.)
It would be possible to use characters at Shiz, in the Emerald City, in Munchkinland, etc to create meaningful scenes here. Or even to populate cards with G(a)linda and Elphie alone, of which there are five—six if you count the Chenoweth and Idina cameo—and two of those are the Three and Four of Flowers, which…. They're different scenes. They are. But....
Of course, if I’d had five cards with Buffy and Faith, I probably would’ve been happy, so there is that. But then they’re not the Two of Flowers—Elphie and Fiyero are, which is fine, it can be that kind of friendship-to-love. But imagine, Galinda brushing Elphie’s hair as the Two. Her, Elphie and Nessa studying as the Three, and the Ozdust as the Four.
However, I would accept all the doubling in the world if they could’ve arranged not to USE PEOPLE AS MULTIPLE COURT CARDS!! I can kind of, KIND OF accept Boq/Tin Man as different people. Maybe. But as both the Knight and King of Flowers?? G(a)linda and Elphaba? No. Fiyero the guard as both the King and Knight of Brooms? (He might be the Scarecrow as the Knight? Which is weirder.) What are we doing? And Elphaba and Nessa share the Page of Brooms (Wands) in a card that should absolutely be the Six of Flowers (Cups) If Gilly didn’t design it for that initially, or at least consider it, I’m a flying monkey. (Chistery would’ve been a good Knight of Swords….)
I understand the constraints. That’s why with The Reader’s Tarot, we’re working with stories that have universes, and will likely stick with series. It’s hard to present a tarot if you don’t have at least twenty-two characters (Twenty-two Elphaba cards!) And I do like some of the scenes here. They get the story across. If the limited cast wasn’t so blatant with the Court Cards, I’d be more okay with it. I guess they wouldn’t let Gilly work in anything else that came from the musical — no Time Dragon, for instance—or the book, which could’ve provided some meat to the politics going on. The themes are there in the musical. But even locations like the Oz Dust and whatever that library was in the movie are underused.
If Wands had been Wands — they exist! G(a)linda has a freaking training wand — and Brooms were Swords, I think it could’ve worked. (Oh, why Flowers, not poppies? The opiate thing?) Coins could’ve been Emeralds. Or Yellow Bricks, if you must. I could see that Three of Swords as a Three of Pentacles — teamwork building the roads.
I’m not hating on this deck. It’s lovely. The backs are fantastic. The guidebook is really good. There are three cards with a wheelchair user at different points in her life. But it’s sort of bizarre that something based on a world that’s been reworked and retold so many times is held back by the source material more than it’s celebrating it.
