365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.
(Second Update - 1310.24. First Update - 1306.05 Originally Posted - 1304.25.)

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

T-shirt #159: Save Smut! CBLD shirt one

T-shirt #159: Save Smut! CBLD shirt one

I need help with today's shirt. I cannot place the artist. If you're a regular reader, or even an irregular one, you can help me make the blog better.

An exhaustive Internet search has failed.

I bought this shirt long enough ago that I have have forgotten the name of the artist.

Shameful that I do not know this artist.

Help me make the blog more accurate and thorough. If you recognize the art on this shirt, leave me a comment. What is this thing? Who drew it?

I own several shirts produced to raise funds for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Though I have not yet become a CBLDF member (though I am going to do so as soon as I balance my checkbook), I have often bought the shirts when solicited. I own a signed Frank Miller print that matches one of my shirts, which is one of the few pieces of comic art on my office walls not yet featured on the blog.

In the first photo, you see me reading Chester Brown's book Paying For It, which is an excellent graphic novel on Brown's experience as a "john," a customer of sex workers. It's a beautiful and compelling book with review quotes from Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Robert Crumb (who wrote the introduction), Sasha, and Tracy Quan. It has an extensive afterword and appendix filled with notes, essays, and various content on issues related to sex work and legality. I give this book one of my highest recommendations. It is surely a book that would (and has) come under fire and needs the CBLDF to defend it. More on Chester Brown in a future blog.

I already featured one CBLDF T-shirt without realizing it. T-shirt #63: Comics Code Authority was produced by the CBLDF.

I already explored some of these issues with banned comics and censorship, especially as related to EC Comics in T-shirt #156 as well as T-shirt #63: Comics Code Authority.

If I have not made my position clear yet, I am very opposed to censorship in any form. Censorship is a slippery slope. Though being unequivocally against it may put me in shark-infested waters when it comes to some materials involving children or small animals, in general, I would rather uphold a strong anti-censorship stance to uphold the rights of everyone because there are far more products that others find objectionable--and are happy to censor or burn-- that I do not.


Check out these stories on CBLDF

Obscenity Case Files: Is a book store owner responsible for all the content in her shop?

New Zealand Library refuses to carry Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls.

On the recent ban in Japan of the manga Barefoot Gen

And, another thing, I like smut.

RESOURCES

CBLDF SITE

HISTORY OF COMICS AND CENSORSHIP (part of CBLDF) - Part One
(There are six parts in all and this is great reading!!)

EVERYTHING NEIL GAIMAN HAS POSTED ON CBLDF

Digital Commons Case Study on CBLDF

- chris tower - 1308.27 - 9:58
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2 comments:

  1. hachachaMay 19, 2021 at 11:38 AM

    i was reading this and tried to search for the shirt and i found you here. looks like greg capullo is the artist. https://viewcomics.me/cherry-poptart-cherry/issue-20/full

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chris TowerMay 19, 2021 at 7:27 PM

    Hey, cool, man. That is true! Thanks for the comment.

    ReplyDelete

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