Ruination & Despair

It’s been awhile since we’ve released any new cards, so the inauguration of this blog seems like a good excuse to dust off a couple of designs I’ve been meaning to finish whenever I had a spare moment. The first, “Never less alone,” features a contemplative quotation from Edward Gibbon (1737-94), the great English historian, ironist, and author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This card is a good example of an idea that would never work as a notecard but remains a possibility as an Archelaus postcard.

The illustration is by Gustave Doré (1832-83), a French artist whose work we’ve used before for the notecards “Happiness” and “Fatherhood.”

The second card, “Die rich,” employs a tart quotation from the English satirist Henry Fielding (1707-54), who is best known for the picaresque novel Tom Jones. This card has particular poignancy for Archelaus employees, given that our Founder, Proprietor, and Maximum Leader regards not spending money as something approaching a religious principle.

The illustration is by James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960), once one of America’s top illustrators. For another of our postcards featuring Flagg, see “Life is a theater.”

By eating cinnamon and toads’ brains for seven years, the fourth-century Daoist alchemist Baopuzi reportedly was able not only to avoid aging and death, but also to walk on water.

Source: J. A. G. Roberts, China to Chinatown: Chinese Food in the West (London, 2002), 18.

Welcome to “Ruination & Despair.” We needed a catchy, suitable, cheerful title, and this one vanquished such dubious alternatives as “Warm Fuzzy Reptiles,” “Long Live Comrade Stalin,” and “Let’s All Lie Down and Die.”

Anyway, this highly exciting blog is an integral and dynamic part of Archelaus’s new and improved website, which has been radically redesigned to provide you with the ultimate card-shopping experience. Or, at least that’s what Caligula, our web designer, tells us. If you ask me, he’s been spending too much time hanging out with the boys in marketing. To be honest, I don’t think the new website looks all that different from the old one. Caligula, however, insists that it really is bigger and better in every way and that he has done much more than just add a cheesy blog and a free shopping cart. I’m afraid there’s no arguing with him. He gets this maniacal gleam in his eye that makes you glad you happen to be carrying an old claw-hammer (always assuming, of course, that you do happen to be, which I heartily recommend).

So, what can you expect from Archelaus’s new blog?

First and foremost, Cadwalader, our chief card designer, will use it to introduce our latest fine cards. He has also promised to pen a variety of uplifting, inspiring, and wholesome articles on vintage graphics, but I will believe that when I see it. Second, the eminent Dr. Hurlbutt will keep us duly apprised of his scholarly researches into all things peculiar. Third, Caligula and I, together with Customer Service Minion #2, will inform you of any important developments concerning the website, Archelaus itself, or such other sordid commercial matters as come to our attention. Finally, it is possible (though by no means certain) that someone will occasionally find time to remark upon matters of general interest.