Hey all fellow CoC fanatics and cultists,

I've had the opportunity to play some of the newer LCGs like Star Wars and Netrunner and I immediately noticed something about their cards and card art: they are downright gorgeous.

Especially with the artwork that 'bleeds' right to the edge of the card, giving you that full view of the artwork without white borders.

Now, I know that CoC has a few promo cards that feature this 'bleed' style card art, essentially redoing classic cards in this modern style. We know FFG can do it for our game.

So why haven't they done this fully and completely with the new expansions coming out? Case in point: with the excellent Denizens of the Underworld box, they are sticking with the white bordered cards.

Is there a tournament reason for this? Would the collectors freak out or something?

I'm not hating what we have now....quite the contrary. But if anyone has seen the artwork in SW or NR, you'll know it's stunning and I think CoC can have that too.

In the past, some CCGs have changed their card look/layout and at least in the examples I've heard of the players usually end up hating it because their cards don't match anymore and deck don't look right.

It's OK for an occasional promo card and these may just be collected and not really played anyhow, but I wouldn't want FFG to go to a new layout for all cards at this late point in the game.

Honestly, redoing the entire layout of the card template is probably too much work for a design team to do when they are already overworked as is.

AGoT and CoC are their two oldest LCGs are both bordered. W:I started the full-bleed card layout, which continued with the others. Some may see full-bleed as "value added", but since W:I went the way of the dodo, that's also an argument against it as something completely awesome and necessary for the game. I'm fine with bordered cards, I actually like the way they did the "ambient" backgrounds for each faction and how they put the pictures in those old-timey picture corners. It shows an attention to detail and adds a lot of character.

I don't really have anything to add to this discussion, though I don't particularly mind the borders.

I just wanted to make a post in this thread to share in the Red-Gloved Man love our avatars show :-)

My take on this:

1. I like how the designers have incorporated different backgrounds along the border depending on what type of card it is (i.e. character, event, support).

2. I've also found that cards with a border tend to look better longer then those without. Even with sleeves and careful shuffling cards can get dinged up a little. Full-bleed cards show small nicks a lot more than those with a white border.

I do agree that the full-bleed cards look amazing, but I would prefer they stick with the white border format for all their standard releases and just do full-bleed for the promos.

Maybe in a perfect world FFG would offer PoD full-bleed versions of all the CoC cards, without all the fancy boxes and so forth, of course.

I've had the opportunity to play some of the newer LCGs like Star Wars and Netrunner and I immediately noticed something about their cards and card art: they are downright gorgeous.

Especially with the artwork that 'bleeds' right to the edge of the card, giving you that full view of the artwork without white borders.

Well, I'm not eaxctly sure what you are talking about since neither Star Wars, nor Netrunner use full bleed art. LotR, does (for character cards). I also don't feel that the artwork for Star Wars or Netrunner is actually better than that for CoC.

I've had the opportunity to play some of the newer LCGs like Star Wars and Netrunner and I immediately noticed something about their cards and card art: they are downright gorgeous.

Especially with the artwork that 'bleeds' right to the edge of the card, giving you that full view of the artwork without white borders.

Well, I'm not eaxctly sure what you are talking about since neither Star Wars, nor Netrunner use full bleed art. LotR, does (for character cards). I also don't feel that the artwork for Star Wars or Netrunner is actually better than that for CoC.

SW looks incredible indeed. But AN is nowhere near CoC imo.

Thanks for chiming in everyone. I will agree that converting all of our CoC cards now to the full-bleed art layout would be very late at this stage and probably end up being disruptive for players. Still......it's a nice dream, especially when you compare the old Cthulhu card (core) with the promo that was given out a while back (sooo much nicer.....). Stephen Somers does a great Cthulhu promo and also did a jaw-droppingly great job with the latest Yog-Sothoth (Key and the Gate).

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/330/d/6/cthulhualternate_stephen_somers_by_stephensomers-d6vq38f.jpg

I sense a lot of CoC pride here so I want to ask a very serious question. I've been getting back into card games lately and recently sat down for some good ol' Magic with younger players (I stopped playing back in 1997). I was a bit put off by the fact that the art looks so.......samey....nowadays. I can't tell the difference between any of the artists. It's not a bad thing, not by any stretch of the imagination, just.......fiercely homogeneous. What happened to the wonderful variety of art styles that each Magic card had? I feel that having a different art style spread across the game gives character and uniqueness to every card. I liked the fact that I could tell what a Quinton Hoover card looks like versus a Melissa Benson one. Conversely, every modern day Magic card looks like the artists were whipped and brow-beaten to have their styles all conform to the same art direction....regardless if they liked it or not.

Then I started thinking about CoC. I believe that there still is this variety of art styles that I crave. I think Cynthia Sheppard (cover of Denizens expansion), as an example, is doing a bang-up job. What do you think? Does the art direction in CoC match (or surpass) the standard put forth by Magic The Gathering? Or is it too different to compare?

I always appreciate consistent artwork. This doesn't make an Asylum Pack, Expansion or even Cycle worse - quite the contrary. CoC has a unique feeling about it, a unique atmosphere. It wants to tell a story. And with a dozen or so different art styles on the cards, I really think this hurts the atmosphere a lot.

I don't play Magic, so I cannot say anything about its artwork. For CoC there's several distinctive artists involved and I actually kind of like the variety. For example Rafal Hrynkiewicz has a completely different style than Alexandre Dainche, but I like both and think both have a place in the game.

The Star Wars artwork seems to be good, too, but it's rather 'samey' which I assume is because they're often using movie stills as a model and Lucasfilms demands a certain 'look'.

I've never played Magic either, so I'm not much use comparing their artwork.

I do feel that Call of Cthulhu has very good artwork overall - I like it better than any of the other LCGs so far. Now, I understand that you can look at some of the newer stuff and tell that more budget went into say the Star Wars art, but there's a big difference between just technically excellent art and art that evokes the right feel. The Cthulhu art I feel excels at this, even with the earlier cards that aren't all that fancy. Lately though the level of polish has been really good and we're getting the best of both worlds - plus not having to run every prospective image past Disney for approval must be nice too

I agree. I think the art is very good at evoking certain moods, namely the creep factor. I have some trouble looking at Y'Golonac because it's just so damned revolting to look at.

The original Y'Golonac or the promo one? I'm assuming probably original. Personally though I prefer the original one, he looks wrong to me with a head and he looks too much like a used car salesman.

The most disturbing card to me is Domestic Sacrifice.

Domestic Sacrifice. Eesh, that's a rough one. I'd put Corrupted Midwife up there as well. For me, the most disturbing Cthulhu card art I've seen is from the CCG-era: The Speaking Cells .

I don't really care for the promo Y'Golonac, too cartoony. I think it's their only misstep in a full-bleed card so far. Fortunately the new Clover Club Torch Singer is amazing.

That is one disturbing card......... Hey, how come FFG doesn't reprint more of those CCG era cards for the current LCG?

Another horrifying card (that has such a good card ability that I must put it into my Shub deck...) is Shocking Transformation. Talk about ugly.

Speaking Cells looks ... uncomfortable.

Hi all.

You can get a lot off art of this game (and Arkham Horror, Mansions, and more) compile in spanish forums, at this link:

Imágenes de La LLamada de Cthulhu (Chaosium, FFG, Pelgrane y más) 14-04-14. rar (720 MB)