As 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.

I’m not a fancy guy. I don’t play video games with my pinky pointed up, and I don’t know which forks go on which side - and while I do enjoy a nice sushi dinner, a woman in a black dress and the jazz of Charles Mingus, most of my own daily wardrobe consists of t-shirts and jeans. And it has since I was ten. Maybe it’s time for change. Maybe it’s time for a lot of things. Maybe it’s time to get off my back, MOM.

But after over a decade of wearing t-shirts, I’ve accumulated an alarming number of them. They’ve been collected in phases of interest - there’s Nightmare Before Christmas, various comic book characters, and different musicians, and those shirts with random animals that your grandma gets you because you said that you didn’t hate animals once and you don’t know how to get her to stop. Hey grandma, I don’t hate hundred dollar bills either. While I’m no longer, at the ripe old age of 20-something, interested in displaying my love of Harley Quinn or Jethro Tull across my chest, I need to do SOMETHING with these shirts. They’re taking over the attic and garage and I think that one hissed at the dog.

Oh, sure, there’s always donation - but a good majority of these shirts are pretty badly faded from over-use, and some especially awesome ones have sprung holes in revealing areas. I don’t think that giving away garbage really counts as a charitable act, and I’m not young or hip enough to wear a t-shirt that I’ve awkwardly patched up. Or embedded with safety pins, or written band names on. Those were the days, when I could both embed and write without fear! But man, did I collect a lot of t-shirts, and like a fine bottle of milk, many did not age well.

I went on a search for a list of ways I could repurpose old shirts, not unlike my search for ways to repurpose old records. Still, many of the options presented to me were too hip for my particular personality. I don’t have the body to transform shirts into sleevelessness, and while the dress designs were really pretty amazing, I also don’t have the body for those. Or enough gender ambiguity, either. It’s already disconcerting to see the resurgence of the kilt at comic conventions.

The best idea for my particular situation was actually a tremendously simple one - throw pillows! No longer must we suffer through the stodgy autumn-scenes-with-tassels of the older generations. No more sad-looking dogs or ungodly burlap floral patterns. You can transform your t-shirts into throw pillow covers and get one final use out of them.
Throw pillow blanks are fairly easy to find at your local craft shop, be it a Michaels or an AC Moore. Online tutorials are, as ever, helpful - and it’s not exceptionally difficult to cut a square out of the front of your shirt. You have the option of adding a zipper, or simply add a fold-over flap. Ultimately, though, throw pillows are a perfect sign of being mature and domesticated, and when you juxtapoz sophistication with pop culture, you have the perfect icon for my generation. For me, it’s all about finding that balance between youthful jubilance and attractive sophistication without repelling any girl that you might bring back to the ol’ homestead.

Pillows aren’t your only option for your sagging t-shirt collection, as shirt designs also adorn some very attractive handbags. And yes, as a male with a lot of important accessories (sketchbook, pencils, cellphone, iPod, lip gloss), I carry a man purse. It’s either that or a fanny pack, and no one in the history of the universe ever looked attractive lugging one of those around.

As someone preoccupied with turning ‘things into other things’, like wood and screws into robots and paper and ink into illustrations, I must resist the compulsion to transform shirts that I still actively WEAR into sexy throw pillows, because nothing says ‘let’s get these pillows out of the way and have some fun’ like, well, throw pillows. And of course by ‘fun’, I mean building a fort. Of course, you can also use the raw fabric to make stuffed animals, though the shirt material is usually prety stretchy and doesn’t hold a shape all that well, but the designs are undeniably too good to go to waste.

So don’t throw things out. Make things out of ‘em.

===================

Gotta Collect? Then You Gotta Connect - Join our Collectors’ Community!

I’m not one to be very conscious of the world of haute couture or those certain articles of clothing which might be worth more than my college tuition. In fact, I’m quite the opposite, but mostly out of necessity. I have student loans to repay, and my general proportions and demeanor are appropriately masked and amplified by one of the only cosmetic choices that I choose to affect - my ever-lovin’ t-shirt. My adventures don’t take me to anyplace that requires any higher state of refinement, so it’s usually me and my t-shirt against the world. And because of this, I have about a katrillion of ‘em. The nerd banner for the new millennium. And, well, millenniums past. However long they’ve been putting Captain America on t-shirts. That’s how long.

I wouldn’t normally classify my shirts as a collection, except for the fact that I possess an excess of them beyond any practicality. I could wear the same three t-shirts and be perfectly content from here until the apocalypse, but society at large tends to shun those people whose attire is as constant as that of a cartoon character. One wonders if Charlie Brown actually had more than one zigzag shirt, or if his state of perpetual morbidity prevented him from ever even changing his clothes, because really, what’s the point? What the hell is the point?

For the past year or so, my wardrobe has been composed of almost entirely shirts purchased from Threadless, a designer T company that I first became attracted to when I learned that all of their designs are user-submitted and audience-voted creations. This ensures a variety of ideas and designs among their products, and very rarely does a snide and pseudo-witty slogan besmirch the canvas of their otherwise intelligent and beautiful shirts. My philosophy on t-shirts matches that of my philosophy on coffee mugs - because of their ease of production, it’s a world populated by foul, unattractive denizens, and you have to dig deep to find something that isn’t outright embarrassing to anyone with an IQ over 70, but Threadless pulls it off.

Of course, I must admit to a biased opinion. Especially about Bone Gramophone, which I’d designed for a contest and subsequently placed third in. These user-submitted designs, once selected through a process influenced by audience voting (but ultimately, resting heavily on the shoulders of the site’s young and entrepreneurial proprietors), win a significant chunk of cash and mini-fame, so there’s scarcely a party who does not benefit from the arrangement. Their catalogue spans a vast array of choices, so there’s something for all ages and senses of humor and beauty. Their attention to the artistry of design has led them to treat their shirts as objets d’art, actually giving them editions which increase as the shirt’s popularity demands that it be reprinted. With shirts being seen as status symbols, a first edition shirt says ‘I was there WHEN!’, if you ever find yourself in a group of people so self-conscious and arrogant that you need to prove yourself in such a way. Me, I resort to a ninja-kick and ducking around a corner to cry, but you can do it your own way.

Personally, I’ve been absurdly in love with my Dark Side of the Garden shirt, as it appeals to both a strong sense of design and my passion for all things Vader. My love of vinyl and design is also fairly exemplified in The Outdoor Mix. Piece of Meat is another favorite, as I can proudly display my much-maligned omnivorism. There’s no shortage of robots or squid either. There are a lot of shirt sites out there, as shirt printing has become a very accessible technology, but there are few that really possess this much goodwill and Web 2.0 awareness. And if you love your shirts? Submit a photo of yourself wearing it and they’ll give you a buck or so off of your next order. Submit a winning design and get a ridiculous number of free shirts along with your cash prize.

(My most recent self-portrait submission)

Outside of Threadless, no truly useful t-shirt collection would be complete without at least one Fantastic Four shirt (courtesy of Graphitti Designs, fine purveyors of nerdware) and at least three shirts that were clearly given away as free promotional items at conventions. Throw in a few shirts from Goodwill that say things that are completely unrelated to you, like ‘Tuscaloosa Women’s Volleyball Team 1982’ or ‘Slim’s Microwave Repair’ for some hardcore indie cred. And please, for the love of all that is holy, exclude any shirts that have a necktie and tuxedo printed on them, or anything that says ‘princess’ in sequins. Those things don’t even work in a ‘so ironic it’s cool’ way.

Because it’s really not.

A good t-shirt won’t last forever if it’s good enough to wear, and the best ones won’t last very long at all. I’ve accepted the transient nature of the t-shirt - the unraveling seams, the unattractive bleach stain from where you grandmother went crazy in the laundry room, that little pinprick hole from the cat’s claw that never went away - but more than other ‘collectibles’, these things have a timeline and memory because of their active involvement in daily life. I don’t remember when my Red Son Batman action figure arrived in the mail, but I remember the comments that I got on my Basement of the Alamo shirt, or the shirt with the big ol’ Bizarro insignia. Many crafter-types have given a second life to shirts in disrepair also, in pillows and handbags. I recently used an old t-shirt to sew some extra awkward tentacles and a face onto squid plush I was making, and that’s some soft stuff.

So it doesn’t all have to be advertisements splashed across attractive chests - no, your bosoms, be they masculine or feminine, can say something meaningful. Let them say it proudly.