Gulchville Chamber of Commerce, circa 1860: H. Oskar Peppercorn, Esq.

  

Yep, it’s me trying to look super tough in a silly t-shirt. But this isn’t so much about showing off the contradiction of my badassery and my ridiculous attire – it’s about my weakness for $5 t-shirts. If there’s a clearance rack, I’m digging in it looking for something…unique. (I also frequent Five Below, the upscale discount store geared more toward twelve-year-old girls than middle-aged men.) Almost all of these shirts are comics or Muppet related…and it seems that $5 is my price ceiling. If it’s $7.50, I’ll turn my cheapskate nose up at it. 

FF – Fotographical Friday: I yam what I yam.

“A-gah-gah-gah!”
  

Summer T-shirt Spectacular!! – Winter edition

When I was away at grad school a friend showed me a photo of his son and he was wearing a Popeye t-shirt.

It was a perfect toddler-sized replica of the one above, which I had packed and brought with me. (I didn’t end up wearing it, but not because of shame.)

Summer T-shirt Spectacular!! Part 4

Ug. This is embarrassing.

Here I am, trying to prove that I’m not a cartoon t-shirt dork, and then here I was on Tuesday, yet again wearing another dreaded t-shirt.

But I ask you, is it really a cartoon tee?

As you can see from the photo I was wearing a pre-distressed Corn Flakes shirt that I got from Five Below. (Yes, in Summer T-shirt Spectacular!! Part 2 I wore another pre-distressed Corn Flakes tee that I bought at Five Below…but this one has rad Asian lettering.) I don’t think of it so much as at “cartoon” as a “graphic translation.”

Anyway…

I got all sweaty mowing the lawn in the evening and took a quick shower before going out to a movie. I was running a bit late so I grabbed this clean shirt…

Once again, allow me to defend myself. This was a birthday gift from my brother and his family, and I happen to like the blue-on-blue design, even though it’s DC characters and my nerd heart is tattooed with the words “Make Mine Marvel.”

The trouble was that the movie I was going to was “Thor.”

Yep. I was THAT guy, wearing a superhero tee to a superhero movie.

And then today I put on this tee along with my bathing suit to play with my kid in the sprinkler. But there is a “cool factor.” Sesame Place is an amusement park in Japan and I got this t-shirt during a merchandising seminar as part of the Washington Post Writers Group’s FineToon Fellowship (which let to the syndication of Bo Nanas.)

And, to hopefully salvage my wardrobe rep, here’s the t-shirt I wore tonight for a on-the-lawn music thing. Art-o-mat is maybe the coolest thing ever. Old cigarette machines retooled to dispense art. (Check out the link for a much better idea of how this works.)

front

back

My wife and I were both part of this in 2005. I made special edition Bo Nanas strips with an original drawing. My wife made matchbox shrines (below).

Summer T-shirt Spectacular!! Part 3

Well, this is embarrassing.

Here I was thinking that I was going to prove that I’m not a cartoon t-shirt nerd and only three days into my personal, unscientific survey I put on a shirt that displays for all to see A CARTOON THAT I DREW! What a dork faux pas.

In my defense, this is a t-shirt for my wife’s band, The Gettysburg Pirate Orchestra, and I happened to design their logo…so there. (Below is me with the white-on-black version…with skull hologram sunglasses

You can learn all about the fun and funky Gettysburg Pirate Orchestra – and hear their music – on their Facebook page. Check ’em out.

Summer T-shirt Spectacular!! Part 2

 

Another post in my continuing personal survey of my cartoon t-shirts. This is the one I put on today. Would it count as a cartoon one?

Summer T-shirt Spectacular!! Part 1

Yep, it’s summer – the prime t-shirt wearing time of year. I am a cartoonist, and in many ways a cartoon geek, but not the kind of geek that wears a lot of cartoon t-shirts.

Or am I?

Today I put on the above t-shirt so I thought I’d post my shirt every time it’s a cartoon one (at least until they start repeating) and try to explain my way out of it so as not to look like as big a dork as fear I might be.

This is obviously an Underdog shirt. I watched the cartoon as a kid but was never a big fan (although Wally Cox as the voice of Underdog was a big plus). I like mottled gray shirts, I liked the design and its hipster pre-distressed look. And I like that it was $5 at my favorite store, Five Below.

To be completely vain about it, the coolness factor for a cartoon shirt is in reverse proportion to the popularity of the character. Underdog is a lot less popular than, say, Wolverine, so I probably wouldn’t wear a Wolverine shirt.

(Underdog also had a cool theme song, made even cooler in this version by the Butthole Surfers.)