Battlepig

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Comic Book Merchandise - Why so tasteless?

By Battlepig 5 Comments

We like comic books. Them being a highly visual medium, we like things that look nice... obviously. And because some stuff does look really awesome, we occasionally get the thought "Hmmm... why not wear something that is reminiscent of my favourite hero or villain?" And that's where it usually starts, isn't it? You get on your computer - because you just know that no shop in your area has the stuff you'd like - and log on to a shop that sells comic book merchandise, namely T-Shirts, because - let's be honest here - there's not much else in terms of comic book related clothing that is wearable and affordable. The very second you click on something like "Show all T-Shirts" or something, it gets really bad.

 Fig. #1: A bad shirt
 Fig. #1: A bad shirt
One seizure later, you realize that the same people who give you many a beautiful comic book are apparently unable to give you something that you can wear without completely giving up any chance of ever getting laid. Look at the image to the left. The image itself is undoubtedly a badass picture. The splashpage in the comic was quite probably something like a really awesome moment where all seemed to be lost and out of the carnage, the heroes appeared, led by Captain America, ready to save the day. You fondly remember that issue, where Cap says something like "Avengers... ASSEMBLE!" followed by a big fight in the middle of New York City and you, as the reader, were right there. Most people who will see this shirt, though, they've not read it. They'll see this and think "Blimey, what is wrong with that person?"

Let's face it, nobody likes people who wear stuff that looks like the depression of a colourblind person who vomited on a piece of cotton that just so happened to be shaped like a T-Shirt. Every square inch has to be covered in print. Have you ever worn one of these things? You sweat like a pig under them. So not only do you look like a disney movie threw up on you but you also smell like rotting bacon. And that's where I'm thankful for the part about body hygiene being poor in nerds is a myth as far as I can tell. And if we're honest with ourselves, we wouldn't wear something like this to the office. We wouldn't wear it to the comic book store, even, because you'd have to pass many people on the way there. And every single person passing you will either break out in an epileptic seizure or stigmatize you forever as that cellardweller who rarely ever sees the daylight apart from the few times where he shows around his shirt and induces epileptic seizures in people.

And if all that wasn't bad enough, there's the fact that a T-Shirt will never be the same medium as a flat piece of paper. The human body just isn't suited to display flat images like the one shown in the picture. If you're skinny, Cap and his friends will be all scrunched up and nobody will see anything but a couple blotches of colour and all that print gets completely pointles. If you're not skinny - the shape of the stereotypical nerd comes to mind - Cap will end up being a very distorted face that will give little children nightmares when they sit across from you on the bus and have to stare it for more than three minutes. Either way, you lose and maybe you have scarred a kindergarten-student for life. Not exactly what you aspired to when you bought the shirt, is it?

 Fig. #2: A good shirt
 Fig. #2: A good shirt
But what does that leave you with? Not too much. Something like the image on the right, for example. It's simple, it's sleek, it works on a human body and it actually looks nice. People will look at it and think "That's a nice shirt" and not "What a nerd". Those who do know what it is, they will think it's totally awesome or really sucky, depending on what your taste tells you.  And what's even better is that it's even somewhat fashionable. Stars are never out of fashion and it's not a mess of colours. The emphasis is clear - there's a big star in the middle - and it has some decoration, too. And you could walk around your workplace with that. Your boss would think that it's a nice shirt, too. However, these shirts are few and far in between and most of the time, only the big heroes get the treatment of the designers actually putting effort into the shirt. There's a ton of Batman-symbol shirts. I'm not even going to talk about Superman's S-Shield. And as a comic book reader, the shirt won't just remind you of that one moment where Cap stood up for all of humanity, but it will remind you of Cap himself. Every single heroic deed Steve Rogers has ever done, all in one shirt. Because you can wear that shirt with pride and show it off on the bus and at the mall and wherever you go.  And you won't smell like a dead animal in it when the weather's a bit warmer, either. So you win on all accounts. You look fashionable, socially acceptable, sport the symbol of your hero and you don't stink.

All fashion-advice aside, it can't be that hard to make shirts like that, can it? You take a look at the comic books, you make a T-Shirt out of it. Just look at the costumes and make them into T-Shirts. But don't add muscles for emphasis of the hero's strength, because all the added muscle will look silly. Or go the really, really easy way: Just take the elaboratel designed title typefaces of the comics and slap them on the chest of a T-Shirt. It's that simple. Arguably the best people at this are Graphitti Designs. They seem to actually take into account that you are a human being and not a flat piece of paper and they seem to make effort. So next time you buy comic book merch, please make the effort to buy something you can actually wear.
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