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How to Make a Magic Cartooning Deck

This deceptively simple illusion delights and baffles audiences: After a spectator in the audience freely names a card in a card deck, the performer shows that he drew a stick figure magician on the back of each card. As he riffles the cards, the cartoon magician appears to pull out a card slowly, revealing it to be the card the spectator named.

Although the trick is disarmingly cute, most audience members find it nearly impossible to figure out. Because the performance is simple and does not require difficult sleights, the effect is ideal for newcomers to the world of magic. Most magic shops sell magic cartooning card decks, but amateurs will find it less expensive and more rewarding to make their own magic cartooning deck.

Things You'll Need

  • Deck of cards with light-colored back
  • Fine-tipped marker in color contrasting card deck's back
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Instructions

    • 1

      Plan the short cartoon animation sequence that will reveal a spectator's selected card. Make the sequence exactly 53 frames long with a revelation on the last frame, or last card. For example, you might want a cartoon magician to pull the selected card out of a hat or a rabbit's ear.

    • 2

      Remove the jokers from a deck of cards with a light-colored back, and set the jokers aside. Mix up the remaining cards.

    • 3

      Draw a single frame of the cartoon animation on only the bottom half of each card's back using a fine-tipped marker in a color that contrasts with the color of the cards' back. Draw the first frame of the cartoon animation on the top card, and the second frame on the second card. Continue in that manner, working your way through the deck until you've drawn frame 52. Don't draw frame 53 yet.

    • 4

      Wait for the fine-tipped marker's ink to dry on the cards, and then assemble the deck so that the animation sequence's first frame is on top followed by the other frames in order. When you riffle down the deck, you should see the cartoon magician act out the entire cartoon animation sequence except for its last frame.

    • 5

      Turn the deck so that the cards' half without a drawing faces toward you. Draw the last frame of the cartoon -- frame 53, the one that reveals the spectator's card -- on the empty half of each card's back, making each display a revelation for the card stacked below it. If, for example, the two of clubs is stacked above the queen of hearts, then the back of the two of clubs should show the cartoon magician holding a large queen of hearts. On the bottom card, draw a revelation for the top card.

    • 6

      Draw the first frame of the cartoon animation on one-half of the back of the two joker cards. Draw clouds or stage curtains instead of a revelation on the other half of each card back. Put the two jokers on top of the deck of cards.

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