Preshrunk

Alfred E Misfit tee, NYC, NY, originally uploaded by gruntzooki.

Preshrunk pal Cory Doctorow spotted this week’s tee on his travels in New York. As someone who spent a lot of time in high school listening to 80’s punk and reading Mad Magazine, this mash up of Alfred E. Neuman’s dopey grin and the Misfits iconic skull tickles me in a fairly inappropriate area.

According to the comments on the post about it on Boing Boing, this shirt came out circa 2006 from aNYthing and went out of print shortly thereafter. News of that didn’t stop an enterprising seller on Etsy from reprinting them tho. And while I’d normally get all pissy about unauthorized reprints or knock-offs, the guy is selling them for next to nothing and I dig the design enough to really want one.

I’m pretty sure that means I’m going to some sort of special t-shirt pirate purgatory when I die, but whatever.

Have a line on a super awesome hand-crafted or out-of-print t-shirt? Think it deserves to be featured here? Let us know!

I’m going to be totally honest with you, the Sound Burger (a.k.a Mister Disc) was never on my radar until I found out about this shirt like two years ago. Initially my general opinion was like, “Oh, what a funky little record player.” But I managed to come across this tee from the fantastic folks at Wire & Twine while digging thru my bookmarks the other week and now I’m totally fucking obsessed.

Little robots scour eBay and are set to mail me the second one goes up for bidding. I’ve also used a recipe to keep an eye for any that might pop up on Craigslist via Yahoo Pipes. The second one shows up for an inflated, yet reasonable price, it will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.

In the interim, I’ll just have to settle for a cotton and ink based representation. That’s cool by me tho — most of my vinyl is at my parent’s place anyhow. Were I to actually score a real Sound Burger tho, it would be totally worth the trek to go get it as far as I’m concerned.

$20.00 | PayPal | URL | M: S - 3XL

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not 100% up to date on all the t-shirt blogs out there. After all, there are over 150 of them now.

To be perfectly honest, that number is kind of ridiculous to me. I mean, there’s no way anyone can possibly read all of those sites — unless the lion’s share of them don’t update anymore. So instead of trying to sift thru things, I’m asking y’all for a little guidance.

If you guys and gals can tell me what other t-shirt blogs are “must reads” nowadays — and I agree — I’ll gladly link them up from the sidebar. Sound like a plan?

P.S. Let’s try to keep self-promotion out of this. If you’ve got a t-shirt blog, that’s awesome. I’d much rather know what you’re reading tho.

It would appear that I’m not the only person on Waterloo’s press release list. I’m not trying to be egocentric there, I’m just saying that because their latest batch of shirts seems to be making the rounds on a few of the t-shirt blogs across the internets. And that’s cool — they do need to get the word out, after all.

If we’re going to be honest with each other, I have to admit that I had a bit of a hard time picking from this series. Dark Side of Oz is rad in a way that only anyone’s inner stoner could truly appreciate and Ramones makes me more than a little wistful. Still, The Royal Tenenbaums came out on top. Why? Attention to detail.

Little things like the addition of Pagoda to the family portrait and Wes Anderson’s ever present use of Futura really tie the shirt together. On top of that, there’s a really interesting blog post that breaks down the creative process and even shows a few alternate designs that would have been awesome if they were explored further. Because I don’t know about you, but I’d pretty much kill for a Richie and Margot shirt.

$24.95 | PayPal | URL | M: S - XL, F: S - L

A couple weeks back, the fine folks at BoingBoing TV had a great tutorial on guerrilla silkscreening — so it’s time to trot out This Old T-Shirt one more time.

And even tho it’s been covered here before, I’m always interested in exploring alternate methods. So sit back, relax and check out this quick but fairly comprehensive tutorial.

Know of a crafty t-shirt related project that’s a bit less, uh, covered than silkscreening tutorials? Drop us a line!

Oh hai, Enclothe! It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. It looks like you’ve lost a bit of weight — and I like what you’ve done with your hair. Oh, I see that you’ve added a bunch of really nice tees to your catalog too. Bonus.

Out of all the ones I’d never noticed previously, this one has really caught my eye. It’s got a real Heavy Metal thing going on. As in I can totally hear Don Felder’s “Taking a Ride” in my head while the crew of a B-17 bomber becomes zombified.

I should probably talk to my shrink about that, shouldn’t I? I mean, who in their right mind hears Don Felder’s solo work when looking at a t-shirt? The guy was so weak sauce that he got fired from The Eagles, fer chrissakes!

I wonder what sort of drugs they prescribe for hearing somewhat forgettable, middle of the road rock in your head. Hrm. If they’re decent, this might not be so bad after all…

$22.00 | PayPal | URL | M: S - 2XL

Yay! Destroy NYC is back in stock at Threadless! And it’s only $12.00! Color me a very happy t-shirt blogger right about now.

How much do I dig this shirt? Enough to pass over an all-over zombie print — which is also $12.00! And normally, my adoration of zombies trumps pretty much everything. Not this time tho.

Who am I fooling? I ordered both of them anyhow…

C’mon, a sale is a sale. And while it’s not one of the famous $10.00 ones that Threadless is known for, it still saves me a bit of scratch on this wonderful design that is slightly reminiscent of Simon Noynay’s Moops — just on a much larger scale.

$12.00 | Credit | URL | M: S - 2XL, F: S - XL

One upside to taking a bit of time off from doing a daily t-shirt blog is coming back to find a whole bunch of rad tees. They’re all there, waiting to be ogled, lusted after and reviewed.

Frankly, my mind reels a bit at all the stuff I don’t even have any clue about. I feel like I’m in for an interesting few months — and y’all get to come along for the ride.

I’m lifting this one from Andy, because it’s pretty much the sex. Not only is it hella glam — it’s also super classy. Mixing two strong pop references like Marilyn Monroe and Stardust era Bowie is always a win as far as I’m concerned. Well, unless it’s implemented poorly. When it comes to this tee tho, that is most certainly not the case.

So drop the needle on Suffragette City and appreciate the halftone awesomeness of this epic tee. Seriously, you won’t be sorry if you do.

$21.00 | Credit | URL | M: S - 2XL, F: S - L

Okay, remember what I said about not being very partial to theme runs the other day? Well, fuck that noise! It’s my blog and I’ll break the rules whenever I damn well please.

Like remember when one of my rules was posting every day? Yeah, me too. *sigh*

So yes, it’s a t-shirt with a Star Wars reference for the second day running. Unlike the last one tho, this shirt is set in Helvetica and just so happens to be a callback to one of my favorite Experimental Jetset tees of all time.

As far as I’m concerned, that means it gets a pass. And two tees with a common frame of cultural reference hardly constitutes a theme run anyhow. It’s more like a rock block. A two for Tuesday, if you will. But you know, on Thursday and Saturday…

Okay. Perhaps that was a poor analogy. Whatever. I’m tired, this shirt is rad — ’nuff said!

$25.00 | PayPal | URL | M: S - 2XL

This tee combines two things that I loved growing up — Star Wars and Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoon style blueprints.

Fortunately, unlike that ill fated Coyote tho, the rebel forces managed to actually blow up the Death Star. Twice.

Oh. Wait. Sorry If I just spoiled a couple big parts of the OG (see: watchable) Star Wars trilogy for anybody. Still, it’s not like I told you that Darth Vader is Luke’s father or anything…

Fuck. I just did it again, didn’t I?

If you seriously haven’t seen “A New Hope”, “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” tho, please go Netflix that shit, stat. Once you’ve done that, watch all three movies 5 times in a row. Then seek counseling. Because there’s obviously something wrong with you.

$22.00 | PayPal | URL | M: S - 3XL, F: S - L