Cards Against Humanity Meets Twin Peaks In Unofficial Spinoff
By Rachel Cromidas in News on May 26, 2015 9:20PM
Cards Against Humanity has been inspiring spinoffs ever since the first group of partygoers with no idea how to make conversation on their own began playing the irreverent card game. Now there's an unofficial expansion pack for Twin Peaks fans who enjoy playing CAH as well.
"I didn't know what a bad boy Bobby was until he slipped ___ into James's greasy hog" reads the top card in the promo-photo for the 36-card "expansion deck," on-sale for $20 on Etsy.
"Peaks Against Society," as the spinoff is called, only gets goofier from there, with white cards such as "Bob's sweet Canadian tuxedo," "Casket rides!" and "Audrey Horne's Cherry." —a card that was even signed by actress Sherilyn Fenn and went out to one lucky Twin Peaks fan who bought one of the first 100 decks made, according to the seller.
The deck, with over 270 reviews on Etsy, was so popular that the seller says he is making a second run of the product.
But it is somewhat unclear whether the unsanctioned deck violates Cards Against Humanity's copyright policy. The original game and other related products are licensed under the Creative Commons license, which means they can be reproduced or altered and redistributed but only if attributed appropriately, shared under the same Creative Commons license and distributed for noncommercial purposes only. That generally means no reproducing CAH cards for sale. Otherwise, the seller will have to make sure to leave the name Cards Against Humanity out of their marketing strategy.
While the Chicago-based company is not in the habit of suing small-batch copycats, creator Max Temkin told Chicagoist that the brand protects its intellectual property by asking makers to stop selling their cards or alter the spinoffs so that they are no longer violating the CAH trademark.
Temkin said he was not aware of the Twin Peaks pack when Chicagoist spoke to him Tuesday afternoon. But in general, he said he loves it when fans of the game get creative and make their own.
"We took inspiration from all kinds of stuff, and I love that people see something in our game that makes them want to make something," he said.
When a trademark violation is found (which happens on average once a month), "We email people and politely ask, would you please change the name, and 99.9 percent of the time there's no conflict," Temkin said. "If you look online, there's dozens or maybe hundreds of third-party Cards Against Humanity being sold."
Still, we think this unofficial expansion pack is one damn fine stack of cards.
