Once Upon a Geek

I bought a new comic book t-shirt this weekend at Kohls and it got me thinking about what to wear to Dragon*Con.  I looked through my closet and was amazed at how many comic book t-shirts I had amassed.  I mean seriously, these things pile up.  Back when I managed a comic book store, you could consider  these to be work clothes.  Nowadays, I don’t get many chances to wear these t-shirts.  So I decided they needed to see the light of day one way or another.  Therefore, today and tomorrow you get to stroll through my wardrobe.

Over the past 15 years, I have gotten so many t-shirts that I’ve split them across two days.  Today I’ll be showing off my new shirt, Marvel comics shirts, Scud the Disposable Assassin shirts, and Astro City t-shirt.  Some designs were purchased pre-faded (or pre-stressed).  Unless specifically mentioned, assume any fading occurred naturally with these shirts.

To see the other comic book t-shirts I’ve previously displayed here at ONCE UPON A GEEK, please click here and then scroll down.

Here is my new shirt!  The image is of the late-Bronze Age Justice League of America (with a few extras thrown in for good measure).  I love the strong white outline on each character; it’s really sharp.  Also, it’s nice to have Aquaman, Flash, and Firestorm all on one shirt!  This is  the second officially-licensed shirt I’m aware of that features Firestorm. Poor Matchhead, he doesn’t get much play.

Cool Marvel Comics t-shirt bought by family a couple years ago.  Certain parts are high gloss (like Cap’s shield).

Pre-faded Marvel t-shirt from Target bought by my wife and kids within the past year or so.  The faces are very reminiscent of the 1980s corner box images.

“Daredevil Yellow” t-shirt by Tim Sale.  I bought this shortly after the series because I’ve always loved Daredevil’s original costume.

Andy Warhol-style Spider-Man shirt.  I believe this is Mark Bagley art from his original run on Amazing Spider-Man.  I wore the heck out of this shirt in the mid-1990s.

Havok from X-Factor drawn by Joe Quesada.  I bought this shirt around the time he was drawing X-Factor, long before his tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics.  The faded design on this shirt is genuine.  Because I enjoyed Peter David’s run on X-Factor so much, I wore this shirt all the time.  Once it started to fade, it became a frequent nightshirt.

Jim Lee Xtinction Agenda shirt.  Got this for my birthday around the time this story was published.

Astro City shirt I bought in Colorado on vacation a few years ago.

Fantastic Scud t-shirt I bought back in the 1990’s (when Scud was being published the first time around).  Back then you didn’t have internet shopping; you had to order shirts like this via the mail from an ad in the back of the comic book.

Another Scud t-shirt I bought back in the 1990’s.  The stress on this shirt is genuine.  I did everything I could to get people to read Scud, even promoted it on my own body.

Another Scud t-shirt.  The primary image above is the back of the shirt, with the insert being the front left-hand side.  This shirt was designed to look similar to the body of the Scud robot.  The only downside to this shirt was that it was bright yellow.  It takes a brave man to wear a bright yellow shirt.

Drywall, Scud’s sidekick.  Great shirt!  Very colorful and fun!

This is a fairly unusual one.  I got this for attending Diamond Comics 11th Annual Retailers Seminar.  It was held in Baltimore in 1994.  Diamond Comics distributes the majority of comic books in the United States.  That particular year they took us to a Baltimore Orioles game; thus the baseball jerseys.  Very cool!

As promised in a previous blog entry, here is my “Tony Was Right” t-shirt!  I can’t wait to wear this to Dragon*Con!

There were a few other comic book t-shirts I owned previously that I’ve gotten rid of over the years.  A few that spring to mind:

• A Rob Liefeld drawn “New Mutants” shirt from around the time of issue #90.  This was before his art got too wild.  If you exclude Superman t-shirts as a kid, this was the first comic book t-shirt I ever owned.
• A mega-print shirt of Jae Lee’ Doctor Doom from the “Namor” comic book series.  Mega-print shirts were all the rage in the 90’s.  A mega-print shirt would feature one primary image that had been blown up to cover the entire shirt.  For example, this Doctor Doom shirt featured a close-up of Doom’s face, but was blown up so the image spread to the entire shirt (including the sleeves), and was then repeated on the back side.
• A mega-print shirt of Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man.
• A Kyle Rayner Green Lantern t-shirt.  Essentially designed to look somewhat like Kyle’s original uniform.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this installment of “Shag’s Closet”.  Come back tomorrow for the DC shirts…

In an earlier post I mentioned I had begun the TRUE education of my two-year old daughter.  Well, one of the things children love more than anything is music.  A while back, my wife and I were unfortunate enough to stumble across a couple children’s music CDs. We purchased them for my step-son who really showed little interest.  However, very recently my daughter has decided that these CDs contain tunes that should be played endlessly, sung frequently, and revered by all.

These CDs happens to be “Spider-Man & Friends” and “Spider-Man & Friends 2“.  Let me tell you… when it comes to kid-friendly music, these are some of the most painful songs for an adult to suffer through.  They are saccharine-coated, sickeningly cheerful, and… unfortunately catchy. 

The “Spider-Man & Friends” line of merchandise is aimed primarily at preschool-age children, and the character likenesses have been altered to seem cuter and more kid-friendly.  It’s interesting that they included characters like the Hulk and Wolverine in this kid-friendly line.  There was one Hulk book in this line I recall that talks about how the Hulk is never angry, and his incredible strength comes from his happiness.  Things that make the Hulk happy are puppies and rainbows.  Wow… just wow.  Let’s see Ed Norton pull off this version of the Hulk. 

For your listening enjoyment (and to share my own personal torment), I’ve created a medley of six of the songs on the first CD.  You can listen to them by using the player below.  Just wait until you hear the bits about the Hulk and Wolverine.  Running time 2 minutes 12 seconds.  Enjoy!

So…?  Are your brains slowly oozing out of your ear canal now?  Are you already ordering your copy of the CD yet?

On Saturday, I caught the first episode of the new Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon on Kids WB. Wow, it was pretty cool!  I really enjoyed it!  It had a nice rapid pace, lots of information in each scene, and some really cool Spider-Man moments. I’m not sure how Spider-Man purists will receive this cartoon, but as a casual Spider-Man fan I thought it was a really good adaptation that captured the true spirit of the character. 

I’m sure some people will be put off by the animation as there is a slight anime influence.  However, for once it didn’t bother me.  I thought the way Spider-Man moved was really well done.  For example, in one scene he’s slinging across the city, and he has to keep switching arms with his passenger just so he can shoot a web.  A good logistical idea to put into the visuals.

In my head, I started comparing the Spider-Man cartoon franchise with the Batman cartoon franchise.  I think I’m a lot less forgiving of the Batman cartoon franchise because the 90’s “Batman the Animated Series” was so good.  Anything they do nowadays just doesn’t hold a candle to that, in my opinion.  Probably why I didn’t care much for “The Batman” cartoon.  Whereas Spider-Man hasn’t had the quintessential cartoon adaptation yet, again in my opinion.  I really enjoyed the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon, and thought it was actually pretty good, but definitely not on the same awesomeness level as “Batman the Animated Series“.  Maybe there are Spidey fans out there that will disagree with me.  Perhaps the 60’s, 80’s, or 90’s Spider-Man cartoons are the holy grail of animation, and therefore trump this new Spectacular series. 

I was also pleased with the character choices.  Peter’s best friends were Harry Osborne and Gwen (with no MJ in sight - thank goodness!).  In the first episodes, we saw appearances by Aunt May, J. Jonah Jameson, Vulture, Norman Osborne (later Green Goblin), Dr Curt Connors (later the Lizard), Flint Marko (later the Sandman), the Enforcers, and Eddie Brock (later Venom).  They took some liberties here and there, for example Peter and Eddie Brock are old friends.  However, I didn’t feel these small changes really affected the story. 

To sum up, this was a fast-paced fun cartoon.  Check it out!