I've included the photos of the "deck" as downloads, since eBay images have a tendency to vanish after a while. It's why I dislike using images that are referenced by the IMG command - if they move it or lose it over there, we lose it over here.
All I needed to see about the seller was this:
Item location:
Novosibirsk, default, Russian Federation
There are a LOT of really cheap deck manufacturers in Russia - sometimes the decks are so bad, they make the worst dollar-store decks look good by comparison. I think what happened was a Russian printer thought it would be a cool idea to cash in as you said and produce illegally-made decks using Charlie Hebdo intellectual property without permission. Not only is the deck utterly tasteless in the use of dripping and spattered blood on the box, but the box is also completely lacking in trademark or copyright notices of any kind. To top it off, the design itself is awful - I've seen tourist decks that looked better. It bears all the hallmarks of a rush job, something gurgitated out in a big, fat hurry while the headlines are still fresh in people's minds.
Emmanuel Jose had a similar situation happen with his first deck, Curator. A fan of his gave him the Russian knock-off - wrong box, wrong back, identical faces, and they give credit to his DeviantArt account name. But at least in his case, it was someone trying to copy an artist's work because it's attractive and desirable, not someone looking to whip out a piece of topically-current, morbid and amoral junk while the spilled blood is still warm.
I moved this topic to the Conversation Parlor since, while it is a deck, it's not really an official release and no one at Charlie Hebdo or the families of the deceased staff are likely to see a euro-cent out of it. I see no good reason to feed the greed of someone so callous and soulless that they would create this mess to capitalize on tragedy.
(Read 673 times)
