The Thousands

Do people still use playing cards with pictures of naked ladies on them? I imagine the answer is ‘yes’, but still, in an age where anyone with broadband has a millennium’s worth of muck at their trembling fingertips, there’s something grubbily nostalgic about the whole concept. Like finding a second-hand porn mag underneath a bush near a train station, say.

To be fair, Arlene Textaqueen’s attempt at the form, Textanudes, has a lot more integrity than most softcore novelties, seeing as these cards show “portraits of women and queer performers” in a range of revealing yet defiant poses. As you may have guessed from someone called Textaqueen, her speciality is illustration using felt tip, and the combination of bold colours and bare breasts is undoubtedly more arty than porny – more Egon Schiele with a Sharpie than Girls Gone Wild.