h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Pamela Colman Smith - Tarot Artist - A3686222
Author: The_Jon_m - SQRT (7!+1) - (5^2+4) = 42, scout (??!), Still number 1 still top of the pops - U204330

Quick entry, people's opinions please ?

My preference would be to see you start out with a few introductory sentences before diving into the biographical details, even just something like "Pamela Colman Smith was one of the early artists for the commercial tarot card market in the West. While her work received little recognition, either in her own time or after her death, many tarot artists today use her work or its derivatives as a foundation."

I also think that you really need to read this over for grammatical problems, typos, etc. There are a few places where it just really doesn't make sense to me, and I know you're a better writer than that.

re-edited

OK, definite improvement.

This sentence still confuses me:

"because she was often separated from her father by his work she joined the Lyceum theatre group led by Ellen Terry and Henry Irving." it's not clear at all to me how one led to another here.

And here are some typos, etc:
"Her childhood has spent traveling since her father was an auditor for The West India Company, with time spent in Brooklyn, London and in Kingston, Jamaica." HAS should be WAS

"Her mother died when she was 10" ten should be spelled out

"Pamela returned to London in June 18899" I'm assuming there's an extra number there.

"She wrote Annancy Stories a set of Jamaican tales about an African folk figure, Anansi the Spider, among other books on folk tales." Punctuation problems, perhaps "She wrote Annancy Stories - a set of Jamaican tales about an African folk figure, Anansi the Spider - among other books based on folk tales."

"Pamela was now a published writer, an attribute that opened many doors in turn of the century London." should be turn-of-the-century London, I believe, as you're using that whole phrase as one adjective.

"Mathers apparently sent an astral vampire to attack Crowley, who no doubt, slightly miffed by this sent back an army of demons." The second comma should be after "this", and not "doubt". And I would delete the bit about internet flame wars -- it only detracts from the entry.

"The Order broke up into a number of factions: The Order of the Alpha and Omega Temple remained loyal to Mathers, while many of the members, including Pamela formed The Order of the Independent and Rectified Rite was headed up by Arthur Edward Waite." This is problematical in grammar and punctuation in several places, but more importantly, should really be split into two sentences.

"Waite was working on a new tarot deck, and aware of Pamela’s artistic abilities, asked her to illustrate them." The first comma should be after "and", not before it.

"When people see tarot cards on TV, film and in the media" TV and film are subsets of "the media" -- this is like saying, "apples, grapes, and fruit" -- I would just say "in the media" and leave it at that.

"However aside from a pittance in payment, she got nothing for doing the cards, her name isn’t even on the deck." The word "received" should be used rather than "got", which should virtually never be used in writing.

"The Rider-Waite3 is one of the most ground breaking decks" ground-breaking should be hyphenated -- again, it's one adjective. And "one of the most ground-breaking" is a little bit running in circles for me -- I think you could just say "is a ground-breaking deck, in that it opened up...."

"The major departure that the deck made was that the minor cards4, instead of just being the number of symbols in each suit, like a playing card, they all featured paintings depicting the meanings of each card." ack. ack. ack. Maybe "In a major departure, the minor cards featured paintings depicting the meaning of each, rather than the playing-card style previously used." I would also put the sentence about Waite before this one, and then change that last sentence to something like "Many believe that it was the changes Colman Smith made to these minor cards that made the deck more accessible, leading to its success - nevertheless, she received no royalty on the sales."

As an aside -- there seems to be a definite sentiment in this entry that Colman Smith was taken advantage of, ripped off, etc. However, there's really nothing unusual about the financial details of the deck that I can see here. It's incredibly common for artists to do what is called "work for hire" -- they receive a set fee for completing the work, do not share in any profits, and do not retain any rights to the work. Unless there is some evidence that she was initially promised more in payment than she received, I would try to make the tone less judgmental here.

Also, the abrupt way in which the entry ends seems to be begging the reader to draw a link between the conclusion and the section immediately preceding it -- i.e., "Ah, it must have been because Waite ripped her off over the tarot deck that she died in such poverty and debt." In reality, there's a lot more there. It's kind of like me saying "It's because my 3rd out of 8 bosses paid me poorly that I have nothing in the bank and am in debt now" -- I had jobs before that, jobs after that, and I had control over how I spent and saved my money.


Mikey

basically, there is't that much to be found out about her after the RWS deck.

If you bout a deck called Rider Waite -with 78 detailed pictures on, you'd have thought that either rider or Waite would have drew some of it. Unlike a book or something, the one thing people identify with is te artwork, and her name isn't exactly well publised

oh, and re-edited

I'm not saying that she doesn't deserve more credit for her work. But I do think you've gone overboard in portraying her as a victim -- work for hire happens all the time, in art, in writing, in just about any creative field there is. There are plenty of pieces of writing out there that I wrote, with someone else's name on it -- that doesn't mean I was somehow cheated or taken advantage of, I received payment in exchange for the rights to the work. Once someone has purchased the rights to work have been sold, the buyers can do whatever they want with it, put anyone's name on it they choose. Nothing unusual about it, nothing unethical -- it's been going on for centuries at least, and has a lot of potential advantages for both sides.

Since a good chunk of the changes I suggested haven't been addressed, could you let me know which ones you decided not to address and why? Several of them are issues that will need to be addressed in one way or another, even if you choose to use another strategy than what I suggested.


Mikey

I corrected all the typos and stuff, (I hope I have at least)

I'm going to have a look over changing the tone later when my head is back working again

Nope, some of the typos/grammar errors I pointed out previously are still there -- at least two popped out at me the last time I read through, the use of the word "got" the one that I remember offhand.

corrected another 2 mistakes

The bit about 'was involved in a magical war with Aleister Crowley' could use an alleged or something in there somewhere I reckon...

But another fascinating entry from the very bottom of PR. Good stuff!


- Jimi X

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