Hello Tarot

an exceedingly brief and wondrous history of the cutest tarot deck you will (n)ever own

This article appears in the first issue of my zine, Commonplace. If you want a copy of this article in print or to support my writing, you can find that zine here.

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I love Hello Kitty and I love tarot cards, so when Sanrio released a set of Major Arcana cards in 2009 it was a must-have for me. What I didn’t realize was the complicated and largely lost history of the cards because it all started, decades earlier, in 1990 when the first, unofficial Hello Kitty tarot deck burst onto the scene.

cover art for the Hello Tarot

My research took me to the Aeclectic Tarot site, a forum with a maddening amount of ads, and users wrote that an artist named Joe Rosales had illustrated and self-published a black and white Hello Kitty tarot in a limited edition. The forum has no date, but it’s very likely 2009 as they referenced the newly-released official Sanrio deck. Trying to identify a deck’s authenticity, one user wrote, “This copy is black/white, unlaminated, quite thin cardstock and doesn't have rounded edges. It came without a box and without a LWB, but does have a card with writings from the artist and a covercard” (left). A screenshot of “The Mystic Eye” website confirms the description and notes that it is selling quickly.

Almost immediately, the deck was widely counterfeited due to the thinness of the stock and black and white, easily reproduced images. An authentic deck is worth thousands, but to get that price one allegedly needs an email/note from Rosales to show its providence. I have scans of the major arcana here because they are too cute to risk losing to time, but full scans of the deck can be found on Flickr.

Hello Tarot Major Arcana cards

According to a thread in r/tarot¹, when Sanrio caught wind of the deck they struck it down themselves only to roll out their own (incomplete) deck, almost certainly due to the original’s wild popularity. That was the (probable) origin of the 2009 Hello Kitty tarot. A brilliant idea stolen and made less good by a corporation². But wait, there’s more.

The original deck seemed lost to history until artist Brittany Tingey decided to continue Joe Rosales’ project. She traced his original art, colorized it, and add her own flair, changing some cards entirely. A blog post from 2012 on the site Samhain Moon describes the work as “80% Joe’s,” and was not made primarily for profit (though it was for sale), but rather to showcase Tingey’s skill as a recent BFA graduate. This deck was allegedly made available through direct request and took Tingey over 300 hours to complete. It looks to be a beautiful tarot deck in its own right with vibrant illustrations and many of the more obscure Sanrio characters have been updated.

by Brittany Tingey

For example, Tingey’s version of the Empress card (above) has been significantly changed. I love the addition of My Melody and the strawberries. In a way, this whole story feels like part of the mythology of the early internet and fan culture. I do hope Rosales approved of Tingey’s version (for the record, I think it’s super cute).

So there you have it, a story from the intersection of cute culture, corporate greed, fandom, creativity, the early internet, and witchcraft. What’s not to love? It had twists, it had turns, it had it all, and if you - like myself - are willing to brave a deluge of Flickr ads, you, too, can still have you own copy of the Hello, Tarot. The internet really is (sort of) forever.

1. I don’t think this is the thread I found when writing this article, but I somehow lost my original source list and had to track everything down once again.

2. I have the official deck and I still love it. No shade, Sanrio.