David Luna is an American cartoonist working in the spirit of the comics mediums with a current focus on cards and cartoons. His style is heavily inspired by the cartoons and art that he was exposed to growing up in states across the U.S. and Mexico. This is apparent in his first tarot deck, titled "Lotería del Sol: The Mexican Tarot".
Lotería del Sol: The Mexican Tarot © is the first deck to merge the Tarot with icons from the traditional card game “Lotería”. Although traditional playing cards, tarot cards, and lotería cards all originated in 15th Century Italy, the icons in Lotería have become especially known and used in Mexican culture. The most popular Tarot deck was created over a century ago (the Smith-Waite tarot deck), and the most popular Lotería deck was created in the 1800s by a French businessman named Don Clemente Jacques. These cards are the result of the better part of a millennia of Western history, character, and storytelling and serve as an update to a classic game. In addition to the deck, an index of every card and their descriptions will be publicly available through this site, along with printable game boards and instructions.
The linework in Lotería del Sol was a choice informed by drawing studies of cards from the Smith-Waite deck, which has a line style not dissimilar to the bold outlines of Thomas Hart Benton, a contemporary of Pamela Coleman Smith who referred to his own mural outlines as “cartoons”. A Kabbalistic interpretation of the tarot provides a thorough basis for understanding the timeless situations and characters.
The deck itself consists of 78 cards in the traditional order of the tarot, 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. The names of the cards are mostly derived from names of Lotería cards from various decks.
In Lotería del Sol, the 4 suits of the Minor Arcana are denoted by the 4 suits in the Standard 52-card deck, so with the removal of the Major Arcana and the Paige Cards the deck can also be used as French-suited playing cards.
The suit of Wands is denoted by the symbol for Clubs The suit of Pentacles is denoted by the symbol for Diamonds The suit of Cups is denoted by the symbol for Hearts The suit of Swords is denoted by the symbol for Spades
In each suit: A Paige is denoted by a Chess Pawn icon A Knight is denoted by a Chess Knight icon A Queen is denoted by a Long Crown icon A King is denoted by a Short Crown icon
The Major Arcana are ordered by Roman Numerals, beginning with 0 for El Loco (The Fool), and ending with XXI for El Mundo (The World).
The card meanings were also closely modeled with traditional interpretations of the Waite-Smith deck in mind as described by Tarot Guy Kyle Davidson and edited by David Luna.