T-shirt #348 - Kalamazoo College Alumni

TODAY'S COUNT: 17 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!

T-shirt #348 - Kalamazoo College Alumni

Welcome to the 365 T-shirts blog as I count down my final entries. I appreciate your readership! Lots of pictures today plus blog recap. Check it out.

Today's shirt is another of my Kalamazoo College shirts, but since I have written about K-College quite a bit (and have more T-shirts in case I have something more to share), I am going to take this opportunity to write about something else, which, in all honesty, would still have been possible even WITHOUT a Kalamazoo College education, though such education didn't hurt.

I was already a dedicated writer before I went to college. Banging away on my Smith Corona (first the manual and later the electric), or on those rare occasions I could go to work with my father (sometimes on a Saturday) and use the office's IBM Selectric (don't let the name fool you, it was still a typewriter), I applied myself diligently to writing. I wrote many short stories in my youth, starting in fourth grade. I published my own magazine in junior high. Throughout high school, I wrote a column for the local village newspaper about magic called "The Wizard's Corner," which I serialized the adventures of an action hero/ escape artist modeled on Harry Houdini for most of my senior year. I wrote a couple of short plays. I started several dozen projects that I did not finish. In junior high, I spent many days writing comic book reviews for a magazine that I never published, but I did apply myself assiduously to long days at the typewriter. And after graduating, I wrote my first short novel, a love story meant as a gift to my high school sweetheart, an unrequited love. Then in college, I wrote three book length manuscripts: an autobiography, a postmodern novel, and a collection of short stories and poems.

The upshot being that producing large volumes of content is in my blood. And so...

It's time for another BLOG RECAP because I haven't done a full one in some time.

My concern at the moment regarding content on my blog is how I may limp to the finish line simply due to time constraints and being behind on posting entries.

Had I planned smartly, I would have applied myself better during my hiatus, saving time so as to work ahead, enabling me to finish strong with the final week or even two weeks of excellent posts full of worthwhile content. I like to think I provide something fun to read every day, but I know that some days my content is better than other days. I have taken to referring to my lengthy posts as "love letters," explorations of adoration and fan affection for some pop culture; however, these are time consuming to complete. The research alone is daunting and often paralyzing. I have several half finished entries of the longer, love letter variety that have been in the works for months, one of which is actually published and is still unfinished (stay tuned; I hope to finish it soon). Thus, had I planned better, or been possessed of more time, I would have banked at least seven such love letters to spoon out in heaping, sugary goodness in my final three weeks of T-shirt bloggery. Alas, this is not the case. And with work and other time demands, there may be more shorter entries than longer ones as I conclude, which feels very much like a limp to the finish line sort of ending: a whimper not a bang.

My current plan is saving these love letters for after March 22nd when I am no longer obligated (to myself mostly) to transmit a daily post and can take my time to craft meaningful, beautiful, adoring love letters to my most favourite popular culture artifacts. We shall see.

So, on to more blog recap. As you can see by this first list, I have more white T-shirts than anything else, though black follows closely and then grey. I am impressed that 58 of the shirts I posted were gifts and that only 38 of the shirts I posted were new, as in acquired since March 22 of 2013. Then again, I have a box full of over 20 new shirts that I have not posted yet.

SHIRTS BY COLOR/PURPOSE

Shirts by Color - White (91)

Shirts By Color - Black (72)

Shirts By Color - Grey (52)

GIFTS (58)

Shirts By Color - Blue (49)

New T-shirts (38)

Shirts I Made (31)

Shirts by Color - Red (24)

Shirts By Color - Assorted (17)

Long-Sleeved Shirts (16)

Shirts By Color - Green (12)

Shirts By Color - Yellow (12)

Pajamas (10)

Shirts By Color - Purple and Pink (8)

Dead T-shirts (4)

Work Shirts (2)

Also, there's always problems with accuracy. The colors should add up to 347, as today's would not be in this count yet. However, the colors add up to 337 shirts, which means I missed ten shirts somewhere along the way. So these numbers need to be examined with some suspicion.

I do my best to keep the categories accurate, but some have fallen low due to neglect and some are just missed. But generally speaking these numbers are somewhat accurate. At the very least, every post on this blog appears under at least one of the labeled categories.

TOP TEN CATEGORIES BY SUBJECT

Comic Books (105)

Just Logos and Symbols (56)

Sports (53)

Favorite Things (50) & Posts with Music videos (50)

TV and Movies (49)

Family (48) & Ultimate (48)

Music (45)

Comic Book Artists (43) & Cover Galleries (43) & Reviews (43)

DC Comics (41)

Books (36) & Friends (36)

SUBJECT MATTER

Please note that I considered ties as one item, so the above list is a top ten list with three ties in the fourth, eighth, and tenth positions.

It should be no surprise to anyone that comic books dominates my subject matter with the top slot at 105 entries. I use this category liberally so even when the T-shirt is not comic book themed, I have categorized a shirt as "comic books" if there is comic book content in the post. Glancing through the comic book category, I count eleven posts that are not comic-book themed shirts in the three dozen or more shirts, going back to posts made in October. I could get crazy and count the ratio of comic book content to comic book imagery on the shirt, but I would suspect that it's probably no more than a third of those 105 shirts that include comic book content apart from what the shirt depicts.

As for the overall number, 105 posts is fewer than a third of the posts so far with content dedicated to comic books in some way. So though most popular this still leaves 242 posts thus far (not counting today) that examined subjects other than comic books.

Those who have been reading my blog should also find it no surprise that over half of the comic book posts I made were with T-shirts sporting the basic logos and symbols of comic book character uniforms as I have said repeatedly that this is my favorite type of shirt, the replica of the hero or villain's uniform (though mostly heroes... I have few to no villain shirts).

Sports also takes second place in general subject categories, which again is a catch all category for content as well as the actual subject matter of the shirt. However, here the vast majority of shirts are either Baseball, football, basketball, college, or Ultimate, with a few weird exceptions, such as writing about sports with a Stereolab shirt.

Favorites logged in 50 times tied with music videos in the fourth slot. Music and posts with music videos are very close, meaning that I have five more posts with videos than shirts that specifically depict some musical artist. I am not surprised to see family as a frequent subject as well as Ultimate (tied in sixth), especially since for most of the year I posted at least one Ultimate shirt a week. Comic book artists rounds out the top ten with 43 posts. This is a category I added after I realized that there were times I would specifically write about the art in comics and specific artists. Though I have made lists of favorite artists by decade, I have not yet listed my favorite all time artists as I am not sure I can. Well, I can make the list, but reducing it to a top ten or even a top five may be too difficult for my poor, fandom addled brain.

(Here's the list again as I need to see it as I write so I figure you need to see it as you read).

TOP TEN CATEGORIES BY SUBJECT

Comic Books (105)

Just Logos and Symbols (56)

Sports (53)

Favorite Things (50) & Posts with Music videos (50)

TV and Movies (49)

Family (48) & Ultimate (48)

Music (45)

Comic Book Artists (43) & Cover Galleries (43) & Reviews (43)

DC Comics (41)

Books (36) & Friends (36)

Once I decided to go nuts with sharing comic book covers (mostly, though there are a few other posts in that category with a series of non-comic book images), I have managed to share cover galleries the same number of times as the artists and reviews all of which are tied in eighth and mostly because these posts would qualify in all three categories.

DC Comics beats out Marvel as I have many more DC T-shirts, not because I love DC more but because DC's Graphitti company (or the company licensed to produce DC Comics apparel, which is probably owned by Time Warner) did a better job, in the 1990s especially, of creating, marketing, and selling cool T-shirts.

I like seeing the synergy in both books and friends being categorized an equal number of times.

SECOND TEN (11-20) SUBJECTS ON THE BLOG

Lists-Weekly Comics Stack (34) & Women in comics (34)

KUDL (30)

Science Fiction (29)

Causes and Good Stuff (27)

1970s Nostalgia (26)

Hiatus (24) & Marvel Comics (24)

1960s Nostalgia (23)

My Oldest (21)

Baseball (20)

Blog Recap (19) & Concert T-shirts (19) & Places (19)

I started the Weekly Comics List before I was halfway through the year, so the majority of the year features this weekly post, which I plan to continue even after I complete the blog year. I like that it is tied with Women in comics, which may be a category in need of updating. That one may be underserved. KUDL is in the second tier as over half my Ultimate T-shirts are from KUDL but not all of them. I am slightly more apt to write about 1970s nostalgia, my halcyon era of age eight through eighteen, when I truly came of age and was most engaged in the popular culture world around me as a child. But the 1960s is only three posts behind that 1970s mark.

It's amusing that I have posted as many Marvel Comics shirts as entries I labeled as "hiatus." I am also impressed to see that twenty-one of my posts feature images of my oldest comic books. This is how I am collecting those comics for now, though I may throw them all into one blog post at some point.

After Ultimate, Baseball ranks as the highest numbered sports category, as it should be, because these numbers reflect my fandom.

And even before today, I recapped about the blog as often as I shared concert shirts or wrote of places, which is probably more interesting to me (like this entire entry) than to anyone else.

This is the shirt I am actually wearing today.

Here's the list of the rest with various favorite shirt pictures to dress up the list a bit!

THE REST OF THE LIST OF CATEGORIES BY FREQUENCY

Beliefs (18) 

College (18)

LOVE (18)

Humor (17)

The Blog Journey (17)

Detroit Tigers (16)

Lists - Music (15)

Rules of Chris (15)

Cartoons (14)

Hawaii (14)

Top Ten Lists (14)

Flying (13)

Just Good Stuff (13)

Lists-My Ten Best Blog Entries (12)

Writing (12)

Batman Related (11)

Grading Robot (11)

Star Trek (11)

Comic Strips (10)

Dinner Party (10)

Letting Go & Growing Up (10)

Lists-Artists (10)

Satchel (10)

episodic narrative (10)

Why T-shirts? (9)

fantasy sports (9)

Dungeons and Dragons (8)

Jack Kirby (8)

Posts with videos (8)

Work (8)

Fantastic Four (7)

Food. (7)

Gene Colan (7)

Superman Related (7)

Warren Ellis (7)

Wearing T-shirts (7)

1980s Nostalgia (6)

Computer and Tech stuff (6)

Jungian Psychology (6)

Lists-Superheroes (6)

Magic (6)

Science (6)

Self Care (6)

TPTA (6)

Toys (6)

audio books (6)

Athletics Shirts (5)

Chicago Cubs (5)

Christmas (5)

Detroit Pistons (5)

George Pérez (5)

Kickstarters (5)

Liesel (5)

CBLDF (4)

Comedy (4)

Halloween (4)

Identity (4)

John Buscema (4)

Kalamazoo College (4)

Lists-Random (4)

Space (4)

Theatre (4)

UofM (4)

football (4)

whisky (4)

Detroit Lions (3)

Feminism (3)

Games (3)

Jim Starlin (3)

NBA (3)

New York (3)

Star Wars (3)

Teaching (3)

Women (3)

romance (3)

Death (2)

Expectations (2)

Gay Rights (2)

Gratitude (2)

Introversion (2)

Lists-Recommendations for non-comic book readers (2)

Narcissism (2)

Ray Kurzweil & the Singularity (2)

Sassy women (2)

Satchel. (2)

The machine (2)

Vampires (2)

Venn Diagrams (2)

WMU (2)

Why I love Comic Books (2)

Aquaman (1)

Art (1)

Basketball (1)

Brands & Products (1)

Comics (1)

Fandom (1)

Horror (1)

Japanese Related (1)

Lists-T-shirts (1)

Memory (1)

My Videos (1)

POP! (1)

Pop Culture-General (1)

Relaxing (1)

Stupidity (1)

Survival (1)

The Internet (1)

The environment (1)

advertising and brands (1)

misanthropy (1)

my Father (1)

my Mother (1)

other people's shirts (1)

shirts with sayings (1)

the Future (1)

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

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 17 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1403.04 - 18:42