Digital Graffiti (2 DVD Set) by David Peck

Prior to reviewing this DVD, I was unfamiliar with Canadian magician, public speaker, and lecturer David Peck. After watching the material on this two-DVD set, I’m impressed. Peck offers superb sleight-of-hand skills and fantastic, well-designed routines. He is a magician’s magician.

“Hang ‘Em High” is Peck’s incredible take on David Roth’s “Hanging Coins,” which is performed standing-up and includes actual hooks that are taken out, made invisible and “suspended” in the air. In the “Hanging Coins” plot, the magician produces coins and then makes them disappear, one-by-one, by turning them invisible and hanging them on an invisible hook. This is a die hard coin worker’s routine that may not impress lay spectators any more than a good Roth-style “flurry,” but will certainly impress magicians.

Peck also offers his version of “spellbound” where a silver coin repeatedly turns into a copper coin and vice versa. Peck’s version is “spellbound” on steroids and he admits that the complicated routine is probably more for magicians than lay spectators, although he has performed it for lay audiences.

Peck offers a fantastic single coin routine that features David Roth style vanishes and productions ala the classic “Flurry,” but then morphs into a routine where the vanishes and productions occur almost instantaneously. The jumbo coin at the routine’s end is a bonus.

A great opener and MC bit, in “Red or White,” a cork is removed from a wine bottle and is clearly held in the hand. Instantly, the cork vanishes from the hand and reappears on the neck of the wine bottle. This one is worth the price of the set.

Peck shows an unusual affinity for tricks with matches. He vanishes matches in his hands and lights a match that has already been lit. He also offers a routine where several matches are vanished and then reproduced.

One routine results in sugar from a package, the kind found in restaurants, turning into a sugar cube. Peck offers a card trick where a spectator’s selected card transposes with a card that’s placed in Peck’s shirt pocket and a deck that has been mixed turns out to be separated into red and black cards. There’s also an effect called the “Toronto Surprise,” a decent color change effect.

The DVD features both stage and close-up routines. In the stage segments, Peck explains how to vanish a candle in a flash of light and then turn it into a jumbo coin as well as how to light a piece of flash paper and produce a jumbo coin. These techniques are segments that you can add to your overall stage and close-up routines.

A two-disc set for $34.95 sounds like a steal and the set is worth the price. However, the second disc is not packed with effects and explanations but with an interview of Peck that’s conducted by Jay Sankey and Peck’s promotional videos over the years. This is not a negative as watching Peck in action performing magic is always worthwhile.

Because of the complexity of the routines here, this DVD set is for those who are experienced in sleight-of-hand. And it will probably appeal most to those who want to go beyond lay spectators and want to impress others magicians. In addition to strong and complex routines, Peck also offers thorough instructions.

-Wayne N. Kawamoto

MSRP: (US) $34.95

Dealers can purchase from Murphy's Magic Supplies, Inc.