April 14

Today's deck is a modern one, although it could well be called vintage too. The deck was illustrated by James Hodges, a French creative multi-talent but mostly renowned as illustrator. During his life (1928-2019 he has designed more than 40 decks. His first deck was a pin-up deck titled "La Vie Parisienne", commissioned by a magazine with that same name in 1965. It was our Deck of the Month in November 2014 (deck-month-14 and press 11). As a professional illustrator he managed a few different styles. This deck is one of the two decks that were designed in what I call his "wild" style. The Playtex deck came a year later than this "Jeu Billman" from 1970. The deck was published for the Landis & Gyr Co. -Billman- and printed by Grimaud. The 2 jokers have the same design.
Some of his decks are shown on a site dedicated to James Hodges: Jeux de cartes (free.fr).