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.)

Monday, March 3, 2014

T-shirt #347 - Unknown Superhero T-shirt - Yellow Star on Black

TODAY'S COUNT: 18 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!

OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE TEXT OF THE LAST TWENTY POSTS COUTNDOWN: Hi. Thanks for reading. I am posting this "boilerplate" text everyday for the last TWENTY posts in the T-SHIRT blog year, which started on March 22, 2013. I will close out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. I will give myself a short hiatus of total non-transmission or  publication for an as yet undetermined period of time, though I am estimating about two weeks. After my blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. At some point, once I feel I am rolling along nicely, I will begin regular posting through my main blog: SENSE OF DOUBT. T-shirt posts will direct to the T-shirt blog from SENSE OF DOUBT. I will continue to post THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1403.02

T-shirt #347 - Unknown Superhero T-shirt - Yellow Star on Black - DC Comics - circa 2000

I have no idea what this shirt is supposed to depict.

I know that this is a DC Comics character, probably a superhero, and I know that the T-shirt was printed and sold in the year 2000. I tried some searching to discover the true identity of what this shirt is meant to resemble, and I have found nothing.

The Internet may be powerful, but one comes up with very little useful imagery searching for "DC Comics 2000 yellow star on black T-shirt." Given the logo, it's possible that this is one of the many variations of Starman. But all such searches produced no results. Given that the shirt is fourteen years old, a general search for DC Comics shirts produced no useful results either.

I just looked through this list at the following link and found nothing to match this shirt.

TOP 100 DC COMICS CHARACTERS COMIC VINE

Okay, so I don't know what this shirt is supposed to replicate.

How about a variety of comic book related content to fill out this happy Monday in March.

Some jackass wrote that

KIRBY WOULD NOT BE RELEVANT IN COMICS TODAY

This is a ridiculous statement on many levels. The link above is a retort to a debate on many comic book boards by a blogger (Manuel Carmona) who disagrees with the argument that Kirby would not be relevant today. So apparently the jackass (or jackasses) are the people on the message boards arguing about Jack Kirby. It's inane arguments like this one that keep me from frequenting comic book message boards. Back in the day, I used to frequent Compuserve comic book message boards and subscribed to Yahoo Groups for various comic book groups, and eventually I left this all behind because debates of this kind would drive me completely nuts.

We would not have modern comics as they are today without Jack Kirby, so arguing his relevance to today's comics predisposes he already existed to drive the comic industry to its current state. I could move to dismiss the argument just based on this faulty reasoning.

Saying Jack Kirby would not be relevant TODAY and his comics would not sell also assumes that if Kirby were working today, he would be producing comics in the styles of the 1960s and 1970s. This is also a ridiculous assumption because if Kirby were a current creator of the present his work would do what it did in the past, which is to innovate and make more dynamic the characters, stories, and situations that he tackles. He would also be able to produce an enormous amount of work even more efficiently and brilliantly.

This specious argument is also like saying that Shakespeare would not be relevant and sell plays today. These creators are products of their time and advanced their work beyond the quotidian dreck churning about the in the frothy canals of the time period. The genius of these creators would rise to the surface and be self evident no matter what time period they worked in, and they would find ways to innovate the current status quo.

I just added the rss feed for TRUTHFUL COMICS (the right thinker blogger above) to my reader. We need more right thinking people.

VARIOUS FUN ART & COVER GALLERY






Above, fan created artwork Wallpaper from HERE.
JLA and Avengers -
art by the Maestro -
George Pérez.

CLOSE UPS OF MY AVENGERS PRINT

I have shared pictures of the 41st Avengers print by George Pérez and Tom Smith before. But here's some close up shots. A wee bit of glare from the glass, which adds a nice ghostly effect.




1963 - COVER GALLERY

Speaking of Jack Kirby, Alan Moore and various artists did a take-off a few years ago on Marvel Comics circa 1963 (mainly the work of Jack Kirby but also Steve Ditko and others). These are brilliant and FUN comic books, smartly conceived and executed.

I have been meaning to share about them for a while now. Today is about pulling things out of my T-shirts Blog folder to fill up content since I cannot write about the shirt as I do not know what it is.

Read more about these comics via the following links. The Tor and CBR links are particularly good.

1963 on COMIC VINE

TOR - THE GREAT ALAN MOORE RE-READ

CBR ON 1963

1963 ON WIKIPEDIA




 


COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 18 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1403.03 - 19:51