It was partly an exercise in drawing and blogging, and partly an attempt at making a sellable product. Whilst I certainly succeeded on the first point, having produced the full deck (plus a Joker), I failed on the second point, despite a number of attempts. The plan was to sell a printed deck of the finished set of caricatures (and possibly other printed material, such as posters or mugs), but I was unable to find a cost-effective way of producing and distributing the product. A number of people contacted me with the aim of purchasing a deck, so I believe there is a market; indeed, a printer did contact me about producing the deck commercially (about which I’ll say more later). There are a number of companies that produce print-on-demand playing cards (or similar products) but they are mostly limited by having a minimum order (often around 500 decks), being rather expensive and being based overseas – usually the USA, making importing even more expensive.

However, I learned a lot from the project and over the intervening years, I’ve considered re-starting it a few times, but haven’t quite got round to it. This year, however, a couple of things have come to my attention that might make this project a ‘goer’. Firstly, the realisation that the graphics software I use to draw my cartoons – Manga Studio EX – has a two-point symmetry ‘ruler’, which would make the two-headed nature of the cards significantly easier to draw (and a feature I wish I had spotted sooner). Secondly, moo.com (who I already use for my business cards) have added playing-card-like ’rounded corners’ to the range of services they offer. Now, the new round-cornered cards come in packs of 50, wherein lies the another problem, that this is two (four with jokers) cards short.

The other issue was raised by my potential commercial printers I mentioned earlier – that these would sell better if they were out in time for Christmas… which, of course, if I was working on making a topical 2012 deck (starting in January) wouldn’t be practical.

Then I got to thinking… perhaps these two limitations (a 50 card deck and the need to be available before Christmas) could be used to each other’s advantage. Theoretically, by the end of November I could have drawn 50 cards (48 weeks + 2 Jokers) and get these printed  and to the customer before Christmas (and therefore something to put under the Christmas tree), with the proviso that the outstanding four cards will be supplied early in the New Year.

Would you buy a deck of 2012 celebrity playing cards? Would you mind if the remaining cards arrived after Christmas, or would you prefer them all to arrive together? How much would you pay for a deck? Using this model I can’t see them coming at much under £25 per pack, including VAT, delivery and a modest profit for myself. Of course, with enough advance orders, this may bring the price down, but I’d need a ball-park idea of numbers. I’d be going for a bit of a redesign on the previous deck – and possibly a different set of suits. Any suggestions – it’s the Olympics in 2012, so there should be a fair few sporting figures in the news (for a couple of weeks at least), so I could assign a suit to ‘Sport’. Or an all current affairs deck – ‘Government’ and ‘Opposition’ etc. Or ‘Music’ and ‘Films’ (say). Other ideas include abandoning the standard playing card idea and going for a different set entirely – would you prefer Happy Families or Top Trumps? Could I fund the project differently through a crowdsourcing site like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo?

So… what do you think? Is this a goer? Please add your comments and thoughts below…

Well, although I couldn’t find a specific week-on-week story to tie Dubya to, he’s cast his shadow over the whole year with the on-going wars on Terror, Afghanistan and Iraq.

South African Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, was appointed President of the African National Congress, effectively ensuring him as a shoe-in for the Presidency next year, despite the on-gooing controversies in his personal life, from financial irregularities to his recently acquitted rape trial, where he admitted that his defence against AIDS was, er, to have a shower afterwards.

Former Pogues frontman and raging alcoholic Shane MacGowan was back in the news this week with the re-issue of ‘best Christmas song ever’ Fairytale of New York (with the late Kirsty McColl) was censored by BBC Radio One, removing the words faggot and slut.

Newly-appointed England manager Fabio Capello makes the card this week, having promised to learn English within the month.

King of the Jungle is my Queen of Diamonds, having won TV’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here with it’s Bush Tucker Trials which invariably involved eating unpleasant animal parts.

Apparently publicity-shy businessman David Abrahams was thrust into the limelight this week when it was revealed he was making substantial donations to the Labour party through intermediaries, conveniently side-stepping party-funding regulations and bringing the sleaze spotlight onto Labour party fundraising.

Hello Darling! This weeks card is the beleaguered Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alastair Darling, who this week was twice forced to apologise to Parliament, firstly for the Northern Rock fiasco, then the news that two computer discs containing the entire contents of the 25 million names on the Child Benefits database, representing every school-age child in the UK, had been lost in the post…

Risking the censure of the small purple one, week 46 is the turn of the Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, Prince, who this week started a campaign to rid the internet of any unauthorised images of himself, and anything else that vaguely refers to himself…