Axe Cop T-Shirts

I don’t read web comics very often and I don’t follow any. Years ago when I first went online (1998) I read Red Meat which I found hilarious. I think I read through the whole selection but that’s a long time ago so there are probably new ones now. I just checked and there are plenty of new ones. Anyway I came across this Axe Cop web comic courtesy of Glenn Jones’ twitter post (@glennztees). To be honest I find the comic just vaguely amusing but the concept is cool and the artwork is great. And yes, you can get the art on t-shirts.

According to the Axe Cop web site the comic is written by a 5 year old and illustrated by his 29 year old brother. My niece was also turning out stories at age 5 but they were quite different in nature than this. I remember her telling one story about James Bond and how is mother tucked him in and kissed him good night because James Bond was a very good boy.

Skeg – A nice start

This site was sent over to me by 17 year old entrepreneur and co-owner. It’s an Aussie skater brand but I won’t judge them for that. There are about 7 t-shirts in the store at the moment. I say about because things change rapidly in the tee biz not because I don’t have confidence in my ability to count up to 7. Although I do use a couple of fingers for typing so anything over 7 is tricky.

Anyway, enough BS. Straight out I will say I have no interest in the zombie t-shirts in this store. I’m not interested in zombie t-shirts anyway but these bring nothing to the already overloaded table of the undead. Luckily for them they seemed to have changed direction because I like the four t-shirts at the top of the store but especially Ninja, Universal and Rubix. I hope they can continue to pull out more gems like those. Well, check them out for yourself at skegits.com.

People Like Me aren’t people like me

This is one of these websites that popped into my inbox when I really had no time. If I said that I was still trying to catch up it would be kind of a lie as I pretty much given up on a lot of emails that I received last month. So if I haven’t replied to you or posted about your tee/tee store/tee contest you may want to contact me again.

Anyway, People Like Me has a wild website. One that goes against almost everything I believe in design-wise. It’s chaos in there. No symmetry. Different font sizes. Small product pictures. I could probably go on but the real point is that somehow despite all these things that would drive me crazy if it were my website I like it. It just works.

As for the few t-shirts that are for sale in the store (It’s new.), at first glance I nearly dismissed them. Of course the small and lo-res images don’t help but they are not bad. The designs are not amazing but they do have a nice helping of humor and not your typical college humor either. Check them out. I’m looking forward to what they come up with next.

Tee Lotto

The tee industry is pretty cutthroat so there are always new concepts appearing and I guess that is what drove these guys to create Tee Lotto. They shot me over and email and I was noticed they were quick to tell me that it is not an actual lotto but it seems like a lotto to me. The only difference being that you can wear your lotto ticket. (Your t-shirt is your ticket. Come on guys! Keep up!) I guess the reason they are saying that it is not a lotto is that there are very strict rules about who can and how you can run a lotto. I think they are taking a risk but nothing ventured nothing gained as they say.

They are selling a limited number of t-shirts in a limited period of time. They will put $3 from every t-shirt “under the mattress” and at the end of the sales period or when all 33,333 t-shirts are sold out they will give one of the people who bought the t-shirt all the money from under the mattress. The t-shirt is not ugly and it sounds like a bit of fun.

The tees are $12 including shipping ($15 overseas) so it’s not a huge amount of money and while it is more expensive that a real lotto ticket the chances of winning are higher. You can increase your chances by buying more t-shirts too which leads to what I really think about this…

[This is Rude Retro's opinion. He may be wrong. He doesn't know everything after all.] It is a lotto. Saying it is not a lotto is like saying that sweater your aunt knit for you is not really a sweater. It may not look like a store bought sweater, the sleeves may not be the same length and you may not be able to fit your big cannonball head through the neck hole but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a sweater. Shakespeare put the concept much more eloquently than that but I won’t bother misquoting him here. Anyway, by calling the site Tee Lotto they are telling the world that they know what they are getting into. I am guessing they don’t have authorization to run a lotto so there is a chance that they will get in legal trouble. I don’t know what sort of punishment runs for illegal lottos in the States but I imagine it would be a fine or if you already have some racketeering convictions under your belt, maybe some jail time.

By purchasing a tee with tee lotto, you are agreeing to be held financially responsible for any taxes required for the winning of this tee lotto giveaway. 5quidink LLC is not held financially responsible for the gift provided to the tee wearer.

Let’s imagine they do get away with it though and you are the lucky customer. I noticed that on the About Page it says that you are liable for all taxes on this gift. Again, I don’t know specifically in the US but where I come from gift tax is pretty high, especially from a non-family member. You could easily lose 30%. Still if they sell all 33,333 tees that’s a bundle of cash that you didn’t have.

Do I think they will sell 33,333 t-shirts? No. And maybe that’s a good thing. The less tees that they sell the less likely they are to be noticed by the authorities and the more like they are to get away with it and the bigger your chance of winning. As long as you don’t go crazy and spend all your savings on these 100% Fine Jersey cotton lotto tickets I don’t see the harm in it.

No I won’t be buying one. Yes, I do buy lotto tickets occasionally. I’d say that in the last ten years or so I have bought some lottery tickets once every two years.

Comments welcome.

Hide Your Arms T-Shirt

If you have been following @RudeRetro on Twitter you will know that I am off running for a bit because of my knee. You should also know that Andy from Hide Your Arms finally put his t-shirt on sale. He recently had a new logo designed, has a new website and a matching t-shirt. He has a store in both Storenvy and hosted by Big Cartel. They are selling the same t-shirt which makes me wonder how he manages the stock.

It’s a pretty sweet tee and a great color for the summer. I have to admit that I have been considering it but it’d be a little odd for me to wear it. On the other hand I’d much rather wear it than my own non-logo logo t-shirt. Hell, this blog doesn’t even have its own domain. I have been thinking about doing something about that for a while too but it’s a bit of a hassle.

Anyway, the HYA logo tee comes in girls (see above)  and boys American Apparel tees and are printed by the awesome Storenvy. And I bet it’s one of those t-shirts that just gets better as it fades. Shit, I’ve almost convinced myself to get one.

Sinfully Good Skull T-Shirt

I’l admit that I am not a big fan of skull t-shirts, the dearth of them on The T-Shirt Review is a testament to that fact. This t-shirt though blew me away. This design must have taken a lot of time. Even at a glance you can tell that it is special but when you really take a good look at it and understand the level of complexity and the intricacy you realize how truly impressive this t-shirt is.

The design comes from illustrator and tattoo artist Joby Cummings who kindly explained the design for the T-Shirt Review:

The 7sins shirt was an exercise in letter design conforming to the shape of a skull and making sure all of the words had symbolic placement in the geography of the design.

in the order of the placement..
greed, wrath: left brain, right brain respectively
sloth: in the forehead i always felt that to be the sleepy part of the head
envy: over the eyes leering vision
lust: eyes and nose sight and smell are very sexual
gluttony: mouth
pride: chin

Now that’s a big bowl of awesome. The design is also available as a print and for that he turned his design skills up a notch or three.

You can check out other examples from his nearly 20 years of doing illustrations as well as his tattoo work on jobycummings.com.

New Limited Edition wotto T-Shirts

Wotto has added three more t-shirts to his own store which is hosted by Big Cartel. Check them out before it’s too late.

The man himself says they are VERY limited, never to be printed again.

Karl Long has Robot Sex

Karl Long, the TCritic, has released another t-shirt. This one seems to have come unannounced. I got the info from TRoundUp a few days ago. Apparently there is something “to get” in the design but I haven’t gotten it yet. If you do please let me know in the comments.

Karl Long is the most popular t-shirt blogger on the planet (probably) so I was happy when I saw The T-Shirt Review blog mentioned together with TCritic and Andy’s Hide Your Arms by t-shirt designer Zomboy as being one of the three blogs he follows.

Well it seems Karl is getting into the design game too. If that is really his design, it is a pretty good start.

Wotto’s Dead Head on preorder

Wotto gets another print and this time with Tilteed. He estimates that he has had over 100 designs printed in the last 2 years. That’s a pretty good record. This design stemmed from Wotto’s interest in Mexican culture. The tee is available on preorder for just $12 for the next week or so.

This is wotto’s third win at Tilteed.

A T-Shirt, but at what cost

Just came across these two articles around the same time and I am interested in this sort of thing as you might imagine so I thought I would pass them on to you, my faithful readers. They both have a similar theme, not the same…similar.

The True Cost of a $2 T-Shirt is a podcast about labor conditions in the Cambodian textile industry which has one of the largest textile industries in the world making clothes for huge brands such as GAP and Japan’s Uniqlo.

The high cost of cheap t-shirts takes a different route and talks about the environmental impact of mass producing clothes.

Next Page »