T-shirt #20: The Flash Logo

T-shirt #20: The Flash Logo

One of the things I like best about superheroes is their logos or insignias, the symbols by which they are known.

For years, I would only buy logo T-shirts. So, you are going to see a lot of them this year (if I have enough T-shirts to do a full year). I did not like wearing shirts that depicted the faces or likenesses of heroes. Some of the images made just for shirts were too silly and not based on the actual art in the comic books. So, I bought the logo shirts.

One of my first logo T-shirts was the Flash logo. This is actually my second Flash T-shirt.

The Flash logo is one of the coolest superhero logos in all of comics. As a fan of logos, I am prepared to argue that DC comics has the better logos compared to Marvel Comics. Sure, the Fantastic Four logo is simple and basic as is Spider-Man's logo. The X-Men logo is iconic. Though not all the heroes or organizations have logos in Marvel Comics, I like the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo very much (as you will see since I own a shirt for this one), then again, I like the HYDRA logo, too. Other notable Marvel logos include Iron Fist, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Mar-Vell (or Captain Marvel for Marvel), the Punisher, and Captain America. Maybe later this year after I have posted many of my logo shirts, I can do a comparison of logos and which are more iconic and viral.

With casual consideration, I say DC Comics' logos beat Marvel Comics' logos for cool factor, iconic status, and recognizability. Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Aquaman, Deadman, all the Legion of Superheroes logos, the Metal Men logos, the Teen Titans, and so on. Wow. Among these, Flash's logo is arguably top five. Possibly, even tied for number one as the best and coolest with the Batman logo. Thus, the Flash logo adorns my Smart Phone case. I love it.

I was inspired to select the Flash shirt for today's shirt not only because I love the Flash insignia but also because of the recent death of one of the greatest and most influential of artists who worked on the Silver Age Flash: Carmine Infantino. My friend Charles Skaggs, who writes the blog Damn Good Coffee... and Hot!, wrote an excellent post on the death of Infantino that can be read here:

 THE FLASH's Carmine Infantino Passes at 87.

My parents purchased an issue of the Flash for me as one of my earliest comic books. I am including two covers here. I am not sure which issue I owned first, but these are definitely my first two Flash comics. Given that 177 comes before 180, it's likely that the "big head" issue was my first Flash comic, though in the old days some back issues could be found lingering in racks and shelving units at the grocery store or drug store, and it's possible that I was given 180 first or both together. Flash #177 was published in 1968 when I was six years old. I received my first comic in 1966 at the age of four, but that's a story for another time.

I love the Flash because the Flash is cool. I won't render a complete biography replete with descriptions of all the characters to assume the mantle of the Flash. Those who are interested can check the Wikipedia page for the Scarlet Speedster. Wikipedia is actually quite a good source for basic information about things, especially comic book related matters. And OMG! I just found the DC WIKI DATABASE. WOW!! I am having a geek overdose.

Indulge me: A couple of things before I sign off. The Flash comics of the Silver Age, part of my formative childhood years, were super, ultra cool in part because of the clever story ideas driven by the engaging cover art, a DC trademark of the time to compete with the rise of upstart Marvel Comics. Carmine Infantino was the main artist on The Flash at the time. Various writers helmed the series: John Broome, Frank Robbins, as well as the great genius of the time: Gardner Fox (who wrote the "big head" Flash issue #177); artistic duties were assumed later by Ross Andru. In addition to Fox, one of the masterminds of DC's use of startling cover images as story hooks (the cover ideas were often created before the story and given to the creative team to generate a story to support them), the Grand Poobah of DC Comics and the main genius was Julius Schwartz. My tribute to Schwartz will wait for another time, too.




But my thanks goes out to these creators as my earliest comics experiences were shared between DC, Marvel, and Golden Key comics. I was not a one company reader. I liked them all. Heck, I liked comics. I still do.

One of the best comic covers from this era was the one for Flash #163 by the Broome/Infantino team. I had to include the picture here. In classic nerd speak: "it's awesome."

I found that I am not alone in my love of the Flash. Through the fan networks, I met Neil Southwell (tagging you, buddy), who is possibly the biggest Flash geek of all time. Hi Neil!

How could anyone not love a hero whose costume popped out of secret compartment in a ring he wore? Who could run faster than Superman? Who could vibrate through walls? Who could race backwards in time?

Barry Allen as the Flash died in DC Comics' huge crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. I could not leave this blog entry without mentioning this fact, especially since Barry Allen stayed dead for 24 years, which may be a record in comic books for the length of a time a character has remained dead. Some of us comic fans wondered if Barry Allen would go down in history as one hero who died in combat and stayed dead. But then, DC brought him back for profit. In comics, it's all about the sales.

For me, it's all about logos on T-shirts.

-chris tower 1304.10 11:03

T-shirt #19: Love & Rockets: My new favorite shirt

T-shirt #19: Love & Rockets: My new favorite shirt

I love this shirt.

It's my new favorite shirt of the year.

One thing you should know: I am not always wearing the shirt on the day I post it to the blog. I try to match as much as possible, but due to laundry schedules and the vagaries of life and existence, I am not always wearing the shirt of the day.

Another thing you should know: I am not always wearing the shirt because I am the ultimate (or even penultimate) fan of the comic, TV show, movie, band, or whatnot on the shirt. In this case, I definitely love the shirt more than I love the comic. I LIKE the comic, but I am not agog at the thought of the comic. But I LOVE the shirt. The shirt embodies what I liked best about the famous comic by Los Bros Hernandez.

What is it, you ask?

It's a comic book. NOT the band consisting of former Bauhaus members. I know this can be confusing because the T-shirt features the image from Love and Rockets #24 with the characters rockin' out.

Who are the Hernandez brothers?

Best known for the comic book Love and Rockets, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez have become paragons of the alternative comics revolution that started in the 1980s.

Though I like Gilbert's art and stories, I do LOVE Jaime's art and stories. This shirt captures an image from the first arc of L&R stories collected in volume one. I was also very excited when Jaime did the art work for the Indigo Girls' album All That We Let In, which is one of their best and tied for my all time favorite.

I could write expnasively, go on and on about alternative comics, Los Bros Hernandez, what I love about Jaime's art and stories, and other related topics (like Fantagraphics, the company that published L&R). but today is a short entry. Hey, they cannot all be long.

Final thought: doesn't this image/shirt just ROCK HARD?

I think it does.

- chris tower 1304.09
photo courtesy of Liesel MK Tower

T-shirt #18: GO BLUE!!!! Good luck to Michigan in the NCAA Finals

T-shirt #18: GO BLUE!!!! Good luck to Michigan in the NCAA Finals

This should be my 1989 Finals shirt.

I do have a shirt commemorating the last Michigan NCAA win from 1989, beating Seton Hall.

But I do not know where it is.

This is one the reasons why I think I might have 365 T-shirts.

In fact, recently, I purged a bunch of T-shirts, so I may have had over 365 and depleted my collection. I am concerned that the 1989 Finals shirt was purged in a bin I did not sort too thoroughly. After all, the shirt is 24 years old. These shirts do not last forever.

I remember watching the Finals in 1989. I was two years into graduate school and grading a set of papers. I flung the papers around the room when the Wolverines won. Yay!! It's one of my clearest memories of enjoying a sporting event. Though the students being graded may not have appreciated their papers being used as impromptu confetti.

I hesitate to crow too much about Michigan's chance of success. More often than not when I brag, crow, or cheer for a team BEFORE it wins its game that team loses. I jinxed the Tigers yesterday. And I jinxed the Lions almost every week in 2012 season.

And yet, I feel pretty good about Michigan's chances tonight.

GO BLUE!!

- chris tower 1304.08 8:13

T-Shirt #17: Detroit Tigers Country

T-shirt #17: It's obvious you wish you were part of Detroit Tigers Country

I made a secret promise with myself yesterday. By secret, I mean, I did not share it with you, dear readers. I decided to display another Tigers shirt today if the team beat the Yankees yesterday.

Guess what?

Another Tigers victory to move to 3-2 on the season.

I know, I know. Some of you are saying: "Hey, Tower, aren't you a huge Michigan fan? The Wolverines won the final four game last night to go to the NCAA Finals. Where's your Michigan shirt?"

Well, I have already posted THREE Michigan shirts (and now THREE Tigers shirts).  Expect a Michigan shirt tomorrow. It's necessary. Today, it's the Detroit Tigers.

It's always great to beat the Yankees. But it's even better to see the Tigers beat them like the team did yesterday (Saturday, April 6): Cabrera goes 4-4 with a double and a walk, Peralta and Hunter also hit doubles and notch RBIs, Dirks earns his first and second hits of the season and logs two RBIs, VMart slaps a single and a RBI, AJ has three hits. In fact, every Tigers player has a hit except Santiago who goes 0-4. Scherzer is a bit shaky and Alburquerque gives up a hit and two walks in one inning, but the Tigers pile it on in the fifth and sixth and win 8-4. How sweet it is.

Verlander takes the mound against CC Sabathia today, Sunday April 7.

Remember that last time the Tigers played the Yankees, the Detroiters swept them in four straight to win the ALCS. A sweep this weekend is hardly necessary, but it's decisive, and it sends the right message.

BEWARE THE DETROIT TIGERS!

-chris tower 1304.07 7:22

T-shirt #16: TEAM OF DESTINY (2006)

T-shirt #16: TEAM OF DESTINY (2006)

I love Baseball. As I work through all of my Baseball T-shirts, I am sure that my love for Baseball will become abundantly clear if it isn't already.

In 2006, I did not feel so alone in my love for Baseball, and especially, the Detroit Tigers. Not so much at the beginning of the season, but by the end of the season, many "closet" Detroit Tigers fans were making their appearance and gloating that THEY had tickets to one of the World Series games featuring the Detroit Tigers versus the St. Louis Cardinals.

"Where were you in 2003?" I would ask these suddenly emerged from the closet Tigers fans wearing their new, crisp, creased Tigers gear.

Where was I in 2003? Listening to games. Watching games. Often, my favorite of tandem of TV on mute and radio broadcast on full volume. I listen in the car. I listen in bed at night. I carry my portable radio around with me from room to room, outside, on trips, at the ultimate field, at the dinner table. I listen to or watch games whether the Detroit Tigers are winning or LOSING.

In 2003, my beloved team lost a lot. Despite significant changes to the team and leadership, the Tigers set a new record for most losses in American League history with 119. EIGHTY-SEVEN years had passed since an American League  team had been so futile: the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics lost 117 games. The Detroit Tigers narrowly avoided setting the major league record of most losses in a season held by the 1962 New York Metroplitans with 120 losses. Entering the last week of the 2003 season, the Tigers were well on the way to over 120 losses, if not for a mini-winning streak with victories in five of the final six games of the season, which saved the team from making ignominious major league history.

I loved the 2003 Detroit Tigers as much as I loved the 2006 Detroit Tigers as much as I loved the 1975 Detroit Tigers or the really awful (though not epic in losses) 1996 team. Still, I felt there was a lot to like in 2003. Illitch had finally jettisoned Randy Smith, the worst GM in all of Tigers (if not all of Baseball) history. Enter Dave Dombrowski, wiz kid of the Florida Marlins and a graduate of Western Michigan University here in Kalamazoo. Awesome. Dombrowski hires Alan Trammel, my favorite Baseball player of all time, to manage the team with several other of my favorite Tigers as coaches, such as Kirk Gibson and Lance Parrish. The Tigers had some young talent with potential, such as Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Cornejo, Carlos Peña, and even Matt Anderson, who was the inexplicable Number One draft pick of Randy Smith in 1997, the same year the teams that followed selected players, such as Troy Glaus, J.D. Drew, Vernon Wells, Michael Cuddyer, and LANCE BERKMAN.

So back to my question for these fans coming out of the woodwork: "where were you in 2003?"

Was I bitter? Maybe, a little. Bandwagon fans. Not a fan of the band wagon. But did I want them to stop supporting the Detroit Tigers? Not really. I could do without how the fair-weather fans drove up ticket prices and made tickets more scarce, and yet I will take all the Tigers fans the team attracts. The more the merrier. We are an exclusive club, united by one sole common virtue: we all LOVE the Detroit Tigers.

This brings me to 2006. After some rebuilding and smart acquisitions, the team had performed better in 2004 and 2005, but they had not earned winning records yet. Sure, 70 some wins are a near 30 win improvement over the dismal 43 win season of 2003, but I tend to be a realist, especially about the Detroit Tigers. Let's not get too excited.

On Opening Day, someone I knew claimed the Tigers would go to the World Series. I scoffed. 2003 was still too fresh in my mind. In the early part of the 2006 season, things did not look good at all for a post season run of any kind let alone a WORLD SERIES appearance (the first in 22 years). But the Tigers started to win and win A LOT. By August, the team was 40 games above .500, and yet they almost let it all slip away. The Tigers lost the division in an epic September collapse, and they entered the post-season as a Wild Card. Given how the team was playing, I had little hope that it could beat its first post-season opponent: The New York Yankees.

The Yanks and Tigers split the first two games of the ALDS. I attended game three, the first home game,  in which Kenny Rogers smoked the Bronx Bombers. SMOKED! Embarrassed. AWESOME. Other than the last game at Tigers Stadium, this game three was the single best baseball game I had ever attended. Suddenly, winning some post season games did not seem so unlikely. The Tigers won game four also and a trip to the ALCS.

This is the 1968 commemorative World Series hat for the
Detroit Tigers, which I wore on Opening Day 2013.

I did not get to attend any more Tigers games in 2006 after the ALDS as ticket prices were out of sight and work commitments kept me busy at home. But I bought the shirt. I did not expect the team to win the series, and it didn't. But I wear the shirt with pride. It was a wild ride, one of the most fun seasons I had been able to share with my beloved team. And then 2007-2010, the Tigers could not put it together. But now, in 2011 and 2012, two years of making the post-season. AL Central Champs both years and American League champions in 2012. And another World Series loss in 2012. (And yes, sentence fragments, so shoot me; they work.)

Is 2013 the year that the Detroit Tigers wins it all?

I am excited.

But let's not get too excited.

It's Baseball. Anything can happen, and it usually does.

-chris tower 1304.06 10:25

T-shirt #15: Tigers Opening Day in Detroit!

T-shirt #15: First day of the Baseball in Detroit for 2013

The first day of Baseball season should be a national holiday. Though the season started Monday, April First, the season really starts, for me, each year on the day of the first home game for the Detroit Tigers.

Today, Friday, April 5, 2013, I am off to see my beloved Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park as they do battle with the New York Yankees.

I have several Baseball shirts, and so if you are following my blog (and, again, thank you for reading), you are going to read much about my love for the game. I love it so much that I like to capitalize it, like the name of a religion: Baseball.

I will fill this blog with tales of my early childhood collecting baseball cards and playing catch (with my dad or the roof) accompanied by the sounds of the Tigers on the radio, the sound of Ernie Harwell. I have much to share on these and other Baseball related topics but not today.

Today is just about opening day. I attended my first home opener in 1997 with my dad (which is special for that reason alone) at the old Tigers Stadium. I have missed only three openers since then.

The Tigers home opener is my pilgrimage. It is Mecca.

Photo courtesy of Liesel MK Tower

The Tigers last played the New York Yankees in the American League Championship series of 2012. This shirt not only commemorates that the Tigers won that series, but that the team won by sweeping the Yankees in four straight games. The series win marked only the second ALCS win since 1984. The other came in 2006 when the Tigers had already beaten the Yankees in the ALDS. They were not able to win the series in either year.

Obviously, I am hoping for more post season wins again this year.

Go Tigers!

Win the series!

As Ernie Harwell coined the phrase in 1984: "Bless you, boys!"

Tigers greats like Ernie Harwell, Sparky Anderson, Virgil Trucks, who died recently, and many others are sorely missed. Today, I will pay homage.

Take me out to the ball park!

Don't forget the Cracker Jack.

- chris tower 1304.05 7:20

A picture of me in Today's T-Shirt at Tigers Opening Day 2013 in front of the statue of Hank Greenberg. Photo courtesy of Matthew Frayer: 1304.05

T-shirt #14: Lighten Up!

T-shirt #14: Occupy Sesame Street

I like to mock.

Most things are mockable. There are a few exceptions. I don't want to bring you down by listing the exceptions. I bet you can guess some of the taboo mocking topics.

People can be so serious.

LIGHTEN UP.

Just because I mock does not mean I do not care. Occupy Wall Street was a very exciting and important political movement. And yet, it is easy pickings for mocking.

I once saw a great motivational speaker named Sandy Queen, whose main message was "lighten up!"

Read about her in the Winona State University Student Newspaper.

There's also a good You Tube Video if you need some laughs: Sandy Queen at Cornell.

I tried out some of Sandy's comedy routine to my captive audiences (IE my classes) back in the 1990s and early 2000s. One part of her speech stuck in my head. It was what people said to her when she told them to lighten up and how she responded:

"You don’t understand what you’re asking.  If you had my husband, my wife, my kids, my job, my supervisor, you wouldn’t ask me to be a well person.  I am under such stress.  Please remember one thing.  The first and only day in your life that you’re going to be stress free is the day they look at you and say, my my, doesn’t she look natural.  That will be the very first day in your life that you are stress free.  Now if that’s true, we need to start treating stress as our slave and not as our master."

So, really. Lighten up.

Now, join me in linking arms and singing "Kumbaya." You'll feel better. I promise.

- chris tower 1304.04 9:48
Photo courtesy of Liesel MK Tower