The Venture Bros. Amazing T-Shirt of the Week Club
05.28.08 By Collin DavidAs a collector (and this almost goes without saying, folks), I crave collectibles. If I fall a little in love with a fictional character, I want a monument in plastic or fabric that I might be able to hold onto. I need the tactile sensation of something to prove my unrelenting adulation. I need to stick it on top of the TV and watch it collect dust as I forget it exists out of familiarity, and become re-enthralled with it when I dust it off and notice it again. This is how it works. I can explain the actions, but not the machinations.
In terms of collectible items from The Venture Bros. cartoon, shown very late at night on Cartoon Network’s [adult swim] block of mature programming, there’s been almost nothing. The show’s creators, Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick, play their merchandising rights pretty close. If I wanted to hold onto something concrete, I was limited to DVD sets, or two small PVC figures released by Kid Robot, done in the form of supervillian The Monarch and his beau, Dr. Girlfriend. Action figure nerds customize figures of the Venture clan and the bizarre, exciting rogues gallery of the Ventureverse, and even the t-shirt offerings have been shady.
Not even the simplest of all branded collectibles, the coffee mug, has been offered. On Monday night, Jackson Publick’s LiveJournal sprung a surprise on me, and the Venture website, Astrobase Go! announced the Amazing Shirt of the Week Club. I’m sure I backed away from the computer and flailed my arms wildly like one of those car dealership wind-powered tube men and made a noise that likely scared (or romantically attracted) most of the wildlife in the surrounding environs. When I regained my composure, I clicked on in.
I’ve blogged here before about my ever-growing collection of t-shirts, even though I have big ideas about dressing like an adult someday. If maturity is an eventual goal of mine, I’m sure that wearing t-shirts isn’t the biggest part of the problem. We’ll deal with the piles of colorful action-dolls that I have scattered around me first, and I can use my charmingly receding hairline as a testament to my true age, which is ‘perpetual curmudgeon’. Well, I’m now (or will be) 14 more shirts away from maturity. Maybe 14 Venture Bros. t-shirts is too many. Maybe you should mind your own business.
Starting this Sunday, June 1st, the third season of The Venture Bros. will begin on TV, and continue uninterrupted every Sunday for 13 weeks. Each week, Astrobase Go! will reveal a new shirt, which will be based on something within the episode itself. They’re not going to be screenshots from the episode, or narrative illustrations - but they will be imaginary logos, phrases and the like. Each shirt will be for sale for one week only, and when the end of the week rolls around, your opportunity to buy the shirt is over. Shirts retail for $22 each, but if you subscribe to the whole Club package, the shirts balance out to less than $18 each (which includes shipping), and you also get an exclusive shirt which isn’t otherwise offered for sale individually.
Limited edition? Exclusive? Venture Bros? T-shirt? All of these aspects tickle me in ways that get right into my pockets and gently pry open my wallet, and even caress my leg a little on the way out. So, not only do we have a new Venture episode every week, which is a glorious reward unto itself, but we’re now treated to episode-specific collectibles - one for every episode. Because of the low profile and sheer unexpectedness of this Venture Shirt Club, I anticipate that these early shirts will prove to be highly collectible, not unlike certain out-of-print Threadless t-shirts and other wearables (such as sneakers), so they’ll likely find a good, pricey place in the secondary market. The club’s first official shirt features the logo for The Guild of Calamitous Intent, printed in gold ink over a black shirt, which satisfies my gold-on-black shirt fetish, and partially quells my pain for missing an awesome Sun Ra shirt over at Threadless some months ago.
The shirts will be printed on soft, thin (but strong!) American Apparel material, which is something that Threadless recently started progressing towards also. If everything goes accordingly, they hold a print very well, and they’re softer than your average shirt. And if they have the faces of crazy robot-eyed bad guys on ‘em, all the better.
Only two shirts of the potential 14 have been revealed, so I really must be an easy mark to buy such a large quantity of things sight unseen, but I’m excited for having weirdly talismanic, obscure icons of the things I love to wear, and when it’s presented as a complete collection of something, there’s nothing you could do to keep me away.
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Article Tags: Adult Swim, apparel, cartoon, limited edition, t-shirt, venture bros================
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May 28th, 2008 at 7:30 am
You are right, 14 of these shirts is WAY too many. Now, if they had an earring of the day package, count me in. That’s something we can all use - more jewelry. How do you folks get so addicted to cartoon collectibles when you can add a room onto the house and view your glitzy treasures? But seriously, Collin, it sounds like fun and looking forward to seeing them all!