John, thank you for this info.Originally posted by John Pezzullo:
Jeff Busby wrote the following in EPOPTICA (Number 6 - August 1984):
In 1970, while still in my mid-teens, I purchased a Japanese book issued by the Tenkai Prize Committee called MASAO ATSUKAWA'S CREATIVE WORKS IN MAGIC. The book dealt with original effects by Atsukawa and a great deal of the material utilized the shape of objects to create some unusual magic - topological magic, if you will.
I became interested in one of Atsukawa's effects called 'Three Quarter Card'. The gaff is basically a card with one quarter missing, that allows a penetration effect to take place. The problem was that the cards could not be shown cleanly. In playing around with the Atsukawa effect, I hit upon the idea of replacing the missing quarter with just a slit running from one edge of the card to the centerpoint. This allowed me to perform all sorts of unique penetration effects, but in a much cleaner and more open fashion. Still playing with the single slit card, I eventually came up with the E-fold idea which led ultimately to the effect of a single card turning inside out - an effect which was finally written up in November of 1972 and published in January 1973 as INTO THE FOURTH DIMENSION...AND BEYOND. I think it fairly well known that this was the effect that led to Roy Walton's variant handling that was issued (and I might add, initially without permission, but belatedly given after the effect was on the market) as CARD WARP. This took the magic world by storm.
Jeff Pierce
