There are some very talented webcomic artists out there, folks, and I’d really like to work with one someday. Perhaps an artist like Scott Johnson, who has been plugging away at his comic Extra Life since 2001. He’s also responsible for, like, a billion podcasts, and he runs his own illustration and audio production company, Frogpants Studios.

As if that isn’t enough, he’s now muscling into the playing cards scene with his first deck, “Custom Playing Cards.“

So he’ll have to work on the name, obviously, but the designs and samples he’s shown thus far make it look like the deck is going to be a nice little collector’s item for fans of his expressive cartoon style.   

This is Johnson’s take on a traditional deck, with custom, hand-drawn artwork across the board, from the jaunty off-kilter pips to the goofy royals and bulging aces. There’s not a lot of tertiary design to muddle the art work, just simple backgrounds and indices that let Johnson’s expressive characters take center stage. The card backs are similarly custom.

A veteran of the Kickstarting process, Johnson has thrown a lot of stretch goal and extras into the mix to entice backers. Some reward tiers offer custom character artwork, a customized joker, a pint glass, a T-shirt, uncut sheets, and alternate face cards. The stretch goals include completely new variants of the deck, extra cards, and the like.

Johnson’s campaign is looking for $10,000 and ends on May 16th. Decks start at $15 plus shipping. As always, remember that backing a Kickstarter project is not a pre-order, and may not be indicative of the final product.