Keep-em honest playing cards
Keep-em honest playing cards designed by Chris Cooper and published by Dark Horse Deluxe.
One side of the tuck box reads “Keep-em honest” while the other states “Coop playing cards: a paragon of mendacity since 1968”. Coop (real name Chris Cooper, born 1968) is an artist working from Los Angeles who describes his occupation as "Insensitive Artiste." His work consists primarily of barely clothed or nude Bettie Page-style 1950s soft pornography and B-movie monsters, with the female characters often taking the role of "Devil-Women". He additionally designs posters for rock bands.
Published by Dark Horse Deluxe in 2006, the website describes this pack: “These deluxe playing cards (“guaranteed rectangular”) are full-color beauties, featuring the sexy and iconic imagery for which Coop has become world-famous. Indulge your inner outlaw!” The cards display all the main features of Coop’s work: spades and hearts feature Coop’s devil women while the suit of clubs displays lewd nuns and witches, and diamonds are closer to Bettie Page-style images. The image most often associated with his work however is the face of a grinning devil with a smoking cigar clamped in its teeth (see the king of spades and king of clubs). See the box►
Above: Keep-em honest playing cards designed by Chris Cooper and published by Dark Horse Deluxe, United States, 2006.
By Peter Burnett
Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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