Card Sharks



The Card Sharks are a trio of pinball characters that feature in games created by Eala Dubh. Boss Bask is the literal savvy blue-suited card shark (and who always has his hat and stogie), and his two heavies are White (the big slow one) and Hammer (the drunk goofy one).

Although not actual comic characters in their own right (save for a forthcoming scheduled storyline in Room For One More), the three are well-known and indeed almost trademark figures in the Visual Pinball field, of which Eala Dubh is one of the leading members and table creators. The Card Sharks first came to light in the Eala-designed pinball table of the same name in late 2001 (and revised into the rebuilt Deluxe Edition in 2005), and since then have manifested into a running joke whereby the Card Sharks feature in some capacity in the background art for nearly every Eala-designed table from then on.

A sequel, Card Sharks II, is in production. The running joke and references to real pinball machines continues; the backglass is a parody of the Bally Playboy backglass from the late 1970s, and the table art similarly lampoons a number of actual Bally machines from the same period.

The Card Sharks table, along with the Visual Pinball installer program, is freely available for public download. As with all VP tables, it requires the main VP program to run.