Archetypes are commonly seen throughout different media such as artwork, film, or literature. Similar ideas or perceptions come together to create said archetypes. As defined by Faber and Mayer (2008), “an archetype is an internal mental model of a typical, generic story character to which an observer might resonate emotionally”. Carl Jung, famed psychoanalyst, first created this concept to describe how all human beings know of these commonalities through the collective unconscious. Today, we typically think of archetypes when looking at the development of fictional characters. Star Wars, one of the largest film franchises in the world, uses many of these archetypes in its character development. A great example of this phenomenon is Luke Skywalker, as the archetype of the Hero. Tarot cards are another form of media that also convey these archetypes, however they do so through each card’s imagery. With the use of different colors and symbols tarot cards can convey the same archetypes that can be seen in film and literature. While there are tarot decks in existence, they all use different art and art styles to depict the same archetypal messages. Within this project, I created my own version of the major arcana in a tarot deck using the imagery seen within the Star Wars saga. I then completed a comparative critical analysis of how Star Wars contains some of the same allegories, archetypes, and imagery seen within tarot cards. By looking at the archetypes of both Star Wars and the tarot we are able to gain a stronger grasp of the themes present in both types of media, film and art.

"The Silver Age of American Comics, Then and Now" is an exploration of a certain period in the history of American comics. It began with the creation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954, which censored comics to stamp out any content that might incite children to delinquency. Even today, though the era has passed and the Code is defunct, its effects continue to influence how the general public understands comics. Why was censorship deemed necessary? What stories were created in response to the new paradigm? Why did it go away? What does it even matter now? All these questions and more are explored herein.