You are supplied with the Whiplash gimmick itself (which has been made on Maiden Back stock – but if you’re even slightly worried about anyone noticing a difference between that and your Rider backs you really don’t need to be!) and a link to just over an hour and a half of online teaching. And it all comes in a nice little box.

Four routines are taught as follows:

WOW – Whipped Oil and Water – This is a really nice clean 4 card oil and water. 2 red cards and 2 black cards are very fairly mixed so that they alternate red/black/red/black but they keep separating out again. The first phase is done face down. The second phase is done face up and one-handed – incredibly visual. In the third phase you give the spectator one red and one black, then show them you have one red and one black – but in an instant the colours separate again. This is a very clean and visual routine and the Whiplash gimmick means that minimal sleight of hand is required to create a whole load of magic.

Whipped Sandwich – the spectator choose a card which is lost in the deck. The performer holds two black jacks – and in an instant the chosen card appears face down between them. A moment later the card vanishes again, re-appearing face-down in the middle of the deck. Another great hard-hitting routine – and the gimmick does almost all the hard work for you.

Whipped Across – four kinds travel from one hand to the other, one at a time, the last card travelling into the spectator’s hand. Again, really neat thinking about the use of the gimmick makes this surprisingly easy to do. The last phase requires a little boldness and a more knacky sleight. But as a result it ends beautifully clean.

Whipped Monte – as its name suggests this is a version of the classic three card monte effect. I have mixed feelings about this, since the real benefit of the gimmick is for the visual bit – which you only really fully utilise in the final phase when the ‘money card’ visually jumps to the table. The rest of the time, to my mind, the use of this particular gimmick makes the handling more fiddly. Some very fair displays are possible compared to some other gimmicked versions of this kind of effect. And there is a neat extra kicker where the ‘money card’ turns into some real money. But for me, it won’t dislodge my favourite version which relies on simple sleight of hand.

Teaching these four routines takes about half of the time on the download, almost the same amount of time again is devoted to an explanation of repairing/customising/making your own gimmick. The explanation is very thorough and clear, but to be honest this is quite a fiddly procedure. Although I’m not averse to a little bit of craft work, I’m unlikely to do this myself.

There’s another 5 or 10 minutes of tips and handling thoughts. Some extra ideas are explained here which could become the basis of a longer routine. And bizarrely the whole thing is finished off with several minutes of Josh doing impressions…

I’ve seen a lot of gimmicked cards over the years, and I have to say this is one of the best. It is a refinement of a number of ideas which have been seen before, but the final result incorporates some neat features. The design of the card makes it almost invisible, and in practise it functioned perfectly. I imagine that if you are using it a lot the gimmick will eventually wear out – but you’ll get a fair bit of use out of it before you need to replace it (and I would buy another rather than make one myself!).

You will need basic card handling skills to make the most of this – forcing a card, DL, etc. – but the clever routines combined with the gimmick remove almost all of the difficulties.

My regular gripe is that they only provide studio performances – you know I always prefer real performances with real people. But if I’m honest, I surprised myself by liking this.

Whiplash is available from the Merchant of Magic for £19.99 (at the time of writing).

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

The post Josh Janousky – Whiplash – review appeared first on Bicycle Cards.

What’s in the box

Well the box is more of a cardboard envelope, which includes a number of ‘invisible bills’ in a variety of currencies (5 Euro, 100,1000 Yuan, 1, 5 Dollar, 5 Canadian Dollar, 5 British Pounds). There’s also a link to about 46 minutes of online teaching.

The teaching covers three variant effects.

In the hand change – as the name suggests the note changes (to a see through one) in the spectator’s hands. I can see strong reactions with this very simple effect in the real world. It is clearly explained with some helpful details. It was good to see a live performance as well as a studio one.

Visibility – an “invisible banknote” slowly appears – first as a see-through banknote, finally turning into a real note. It all happens visually at the fingertips. I like the incremental and visual nature of this one – and it is not at all difficult to do.

Remove Color – again as the name suggests here you ‘pull’ the colour out of a banknote – leaving a see-through note and a piece of bank-note coloured paper. For me, this is the least compelling routine of the three.

The video also covers some tips on misdirection and performance technique. I’m not entirely sure about his idea of borrowing a bill and keeping it as a tip after performing!

When is a bonus not a bonus?

There is also a bonus routine called Credit2Cash. This is a nice visual transformation of a credit card into a bundle of paper currency with an appropriate hook – when a restaurant doesn’t accept credit cards. This involves a significant craft project and is a bit angle-sensitive, though he does discuss this.

Since the teaching for this one item takes almost 20 minutes out of the total of 46 – it makes it almost the major item not the bonus! And I actually like it almost as much, if not slightly more than the headline item! Each to their own.

Minor grumbles

It wouldn’t have taken much effort to supply everything in larger packaging so that the largest bills supplied didn’t need to be folded. This is a very minor grumble since most of the effects require the bill to be folded.

More significant, to UK users at least, is that the UK currency is not up to date – since we have recently introduced new £5 notes. However, to be honest you could probably make your own by photocopying onto acetate. Indeed there’s a section on the teaching about making your own gimmicks.

If I was being really picky, I would also say that some moves not explored in enormous detail. However there are no really difficult moves and he does reference other resources to follow up.

If I’m honest (and I always try to be in these reviews), the idea of a see-through bank note just doesn’t do it for me. As I’ve tried to analyse this, I wonder if it’s because of the simplicity of making a gimmick like this. There’s something much more shocking/surprising about a 3d object like a deck of cards or a pen changing which therefore seems more magical?

On the other hand, people always like magic with money – so I can see this having some value. But for me, it’s unlikely to make its way into my set.

You can buy Invisibill from MagicShop.Co.uk for £26.99 (at the time of writing)

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

The post Joshua Janousky – Invisibill – Review appeared first on Bicycle Cards.