In 1996, listener-sponsored radio station WFMU issued a set of playing cards as a premium for subscribers.  The theme was “Missing Persons,” and each card illustrated someone who had disappeared.  I was assigned the clubs, and drew each from the viewpoint of the person who vanished.  The ace and face cards were drawn by other artists (George Erling, Krystine Kryttre, Diane Farris, Chris Ware); the box above was by Wm Graef.  A 60 page booklet told the stories.

Here are my cards, with a key below (and, as always, I hope you realize that you can click to enlarge).

2: Karl Hunrath and Wilbur J. Wilkinson, UFO buffs who planned to meet with aliens from the planet Masar; their plane was found abandoned in the desert.  (1953)

3: Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt, who never returned from searching for giant wombats in Australia.  (1848)

4: Rudolf Diesel, who went missing on a ship crossing the English Channel.  (1913)

5: Carl Robert Disch, who disappeared between two buildings in Antarctica.  (1965)

6: Owen Parfitt, a crippled elderly man who vanished after his sister propped him up in a chair outside, and went inside for fifteen minutes.  (1768)

7: Harold Holt, Australian Prime Minister who never came back from a swim; a shark is suspected.  (1967)

8: Louis XVII, the “lost dauphin,” shown here spirited away in a basket.  (1792)

9: The Roanoke Colony, English settlers in North America, who abandoned their settlement, leaving a post inscribed with the word CROATOAN.  (1590)

10: Dorothy Arnold, an heiress who disappeared among puzzling circumstances; Charles Fort suggested that she had turned into a swan.  (1910)