A Multiverse of Infinite Possibilities
It’s 1994. I’m twelve. I have a poster on my bedroom wall. It depicts a fantastical scene inhabited by strange creatures. At the bottom, in bold capital letters, it reads, “A MULTIVERSE OF INFINITE POSSIBILITIES”, alongside the iconic logo for Magic the Gathering, a collectible card game I play with my friends and Dad.
The landscape is a vast body of teal water with craggy rock and stone monuments rising from the depths. There is something mythic about the shapes — human heads and ancient busts sculpted by a forgotten culture of an unknown race. A large blue orb hovers above, pulsing with energy as a battle between two warring factions rages below.
On the left, an intimidating sorcerer perches inside the eye socket of a head-like structure. He wears a fleshy suit bonded to his form with metal sutures. His hand is raised and his mouth open, perhaps incanting a spell to save a pterodactyl-like bird struck by three bolts of bright white lightning at the center of the conflict.
On the right, another rocky head, more feminine with closed eyes and pursed lips; the underside of the face has been worn away by the water, leaving a heart-shaped void. Atop the brow, there are two figures — a witch, the conjurer of the lightning spell, and a deathly-looking Minotaur, with an imposing staff.
In the foreground are two harpoon throwers. One, a purplish knobby-looking thing, a creature of the sea, poised and ready to throw a spear. The other appears to be a tribal warrior. He is adorned with shells and has just launched his weapon. The attached rope untethers as it soars through the air so that he can pull back the pitiful merfolk he has impaled.
It is a powerful and imaginative scene — a byproduct of a creative collaboration between Anson Maddocks and Mark Tedin, two of the original Magic artists, as indicated by their signatures at the bottom, each seeming to claim a side of the canvas.
Mostly unknown, even to die-hard Magic players from that era, the poster is an enigma. The characters are not recognizable from the game, and the scenario doesn’t correspond to any of the lore from the expansion sets. The poster prompted a Reddit discussion a few years back and (weirdly) appeared on an episode of Seinfeld hanging in Newman’s apartment— but otherwise, its provenance seems slightly lost in the timeline and history of early Magic.
Fast forward to today . . .
It’s 2022. I’m a fully grown adult who rediscovered my love of Magic the Gathering a few years ago.
The scene on the poster occasionally comes to mind. It plays out in my head for a bit before evaporating back into memory — but this week, it has been at the forefront of my mind in full color. I wonder if “Evil Slim Goodbody” will save the flying beast and why “Mr. Purple Sponge Cake” isn’t wearing pants. The multiverse of my head gets pretty weird sometimes.
I play a version of the game called Old School 93/94 in which we only play with cards printed in the earliest sets. Our playgroup is called City of Angels Old School. We formed during COVID, keeping each other sane by playing games over webcam, and now meeting up on the weekends at local breweries and game shops around Los Angeles. At 40 years old, the “Gathering” part of this game is just as important (if not more) as the “Magic” part, and these dudes have become some of my best friends.
Our club is finally starting to travel to events again. This weekend, four of us are at the MTG Summit, a sleek new Magic event in Salt Lake City. It is a convention mostly dedicated to modern formats and the pre-release of the newest expansion set. As “Old School” players, there is no real reason for us to be here — other than the single fact that six of the original twenty-five Magic artists are onsite to sign and alter cards (Mark Tedin, Ken Meyer Jr, Mark Poole, Douglas Shuler, Dan Fraizer, and Anson Maddocks) and that’s more than worth the trip.
Over the years, altering cards has become another way for me to engage with this world of “infinite possibilities”. As a kid, I remember cutting up cards and pasting them together to make new creatures and monsters and using Sharpie to put a mustache on my Force of Nature. More recently, I have spent a lot of time painting extended borders and reimagining the card art with a nod to pop culture, folklore, and Rennaissance art— but nothing beats having a chance to chat with the original artists, talk with them about an idea, and to watch them create a one-of-a-kind alter for you on the spot.
And so, that’s how we’re spending our time here at the Summit. The three of us have been standing in line (over and over and over) to get alters and doodles from our Magic idols. These are long waits (30–45 mins per alter x 7 or 8 people), so there is a lot of time to kill. But it’s all worth it because these are the geniuses responsible for our favorite pieces of MTG art.
It’s late Friday afternoon, and we’re hanging out near Anson’s and Mark’s tables again, which happen to be side by side. The artists and their spouses (Brenda and Wynne) know us by name now and have been so kind to chat and talk with us as we wait. Brenda and I share an interest in collecting tiny things, and Wynne is telling me about someone she follows on Instagram named The Kitten Lady, who might be able to help me with the feral kittens my wife and I just rescued.
We’re waiting for Mark Tedin to finish an original take on a “Fireball” for my friend Nick (who is assembling a deck comprised entirely of custom cards drawn by the original artists) when I overhear that Anson and Mark have brought along several original art pieces to display the following night as part of a gallery exhibition. Among the pieces is a canvas the two of them had collaborated on many years ago. . .
My ears perk up. Could it be?
“Wait! Are you talking about the ‘Multiverse of Infinite Possibilities’ poster?” I shout out, perhaps a little too loud.
Mark looks up from working on the Fireball . . . “Yeah, I think that’s what it said at the bottom. It was a promotional item for comic book stores in the 90s.”
Incredible! Not only am I talking with them about the poster I had been scouring eBay for just that week, but I will get to see the original art in person the next day!
It’s late Saturday afternoon. The gallery doors have just opened. My buddies are in line for more alters. Clenét is asking Mark Tedin to add a Juzam Djinn to a heavily played Wheel of Fortune that looks like it’s seen its share of time on the playground pavement. He will be occupied for another hour at least.
So, I walk in on my own . . .
The painting is large. Much larger than the card art pieces commissioned for the original Alpha set. I’ve heard many of those originals were painted small (approx 7"x 5") so that they would fit on the plate of a desktop-sized scanner. Sitting on a large easel, the collaboration piece dwarfs the original art sitting on the nearby folding table.
There is something about seeing a painting close up. Looking at the brush strokes, observing the changes in color, and taking in the overall “feeling” of the piece. It feels familiar.
In the same way that so many of the cards bring back memories from my pre-teen years — the smell of opening a brand new starter deck at Christmas, begging my mom to take me to the game store in the middle of a summer storm in hopes of pulling out a Shivan Dragon, and playing Magic on the green corduroy ottoman with my Dad when he got home from a long day of work — this conjures up memories of being twelve.
I scan the painting from corner to corner, taking it in. I try to figure out where Anson’s part of the battle ends and where Tedin’s begins. It’s much harder than it seems.
I’m the only person in the gallery, so I take a moment to look at the small details. I see something I’ve never noticed . . . an object in the hand of the goth sorceress witch lady. A metal trap with a writhing tentacled creature.
Could it be??
It’s now Sunday. I enter the convention hall when the doors open and head straight to Anson’s table, breezing past the pleasantries . . .
“Anson, I saw something in the painting I had never seen before. Is the witch lady holding a Living Artifact?!”
I have to know. Living Artifact is an enchantment card that rarely sees gameplay. The illustration is too similar for this to be a coincidence. I want Anson to confirm my suspicion and perhaps congratulate me on finding a long-undiscovered easter egg.
He replies . . . “Oh. Yeah, maybe . . . whenever someone asks me something like that, I usually just answer, yes — so, yeah . . .”
Works for me! I smile, feeling delighted (and a bit smug) to have found a new detail hiding in plain sight linking the world of the poster to the world of the game.
It’s amazing that after nearly 30 years of looking at this image and my cards, I’m still discovering new things — subtle details in the art, underappreciated flavor text, inside jokes from the design team, and even likenesses of 90’s celebrities that I had entirely overlooked as a teenager. In my adulthood, these new “readings” have led me to discover astonishing poems (Conrad Aiken’s The Room is well worth the read) and to research the origins of things like Serendibs and Rukhs. I’ve even found myself deep within the bowels of Wikipedia, learning more about the geographic features of dual lands. Did you know that a Tundra is considered a “biome”?
Our time at the MTG Summit is almost over. I make the final rounds and check in with the artists still working on alters for me. I pick up my new They Might Be Giants-themed pair of Giant Growths from Ken Meyer Jr and an island with the Burrowing “mole” added on by Mark Poole.
I wander back to the front table to find my buddies. The event organizers have brought the big painting into the convention hall and set it behind Mark and Anson’s station. There is a discussion about how Anson and Brenda will transport it home in their rental car and what to do with it next.
Before we say our thank yous and goodbyes, Nick and Clenét pull me aside and hand me something in a cellophane sleeve. It’s a limited edition print of the poster art. Anson and Mark have made six available for this event. It’s a perfect upgrade to the crinkly and wrinkled poster that may or may not still be rolled up in my Dad’s attic in Marietta, GA. I’m very grateful to my friends for the kind gesture.
It’s later that evening. I’m on the plane back to LA.
I can’t help but remain in awe about the serendipity of the weekend and the chance to revisit the poster I had in 1994 with the artists who made it. The magical scene will once again hang in my room (this time, my home office) to remind me of the friendships, the artists, and the infinite possibilities of this game and hobby.
Park Cofield lives in Los Angeles, CA, where he plays Magic the Gathering with City of Angels Old School. He is a co-creator of Nerds in Cars Talking Cards, a limited series MTG podcast he recorded (in a car) with John Sexton, Kyra Sacdalan, and Justin Coffee (the latter two of The Desert Twisters) the week before the start of the pandemic. If you are ever in LA or want to chat about old cardboard, alters, or his love of the Hurloon Minotaur, you can hit him up on Instagram at @altersbyPC
***Many thanks to Anson, Brenda, Ken, Doug, Dan, both of the Marks (Tedin and Poole), and Wynne for all of the conversation and generosity each of the three days. And also to the MTG Summit organizers for getting so many of my favorite artists together in the same place!
