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Costiness=$22 Available from Hot Topic
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Let’s get one thing quite clear, I know extremely little about Harry Potter, I’ve never read one of the books (I always tell my HP-loving friends that I “don’t read children’s books” and then stand back whilst they rant), and I’ve never seen any of the films, though curiously I have seen one of the flying Ford Anglia’s that were used during filming. However, one of my friends (who is OBSESSED with Harry Potter) asked me how come I can spend so much time compiling lists and not mention Harry Potter? Apparently me not knowing anything about the series wasn’t a good enough excuse for her, so I pretty much had to write this list. Unfortunately, it would seem that whilst Harry Potter may have an awful lot of fans, they apparently aren’t graphic designers, which has resulted in this list being populated with more than a few tees that wouldn’t get featured on HYA in a normal post, but hopefully you Harry Potter fans will now have something appropriate to wear next week when the new film comes out.
If you’re on the hunt for long lists of t-shirts, there is a newer list of 101 Robot t-shirts that I wrote in June 2009. If you’re not entirely robot obsessed please check out this huge collection of t-shirt lists (from lots of different sites, not just this one), or the lists category. Also, if you enjoyed this post, it would be very much appreciated it if you mentioned it on twitter, facebook, or another other form of social media like digg, stumbleupon or delicious.
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Let’s get this clear from the outset: I like David (Mr. Seibei). He’s a good guy, we bounce e-mails back and forth on a variety of issues, and he’s sent me stuff in the mail before. For that reason I feel as if I’d be on dubious moral ground shouting accusations about what the comparison picture above suggests. That said, when I saw the tee on the right, I immediately thought “dude’s been ripped,” and whilst the two items are fairly different, the similarities are undeniable.Here’s the back story: Seibei first put the tee on the left of the picture on sale in the summer of 2005 and it has gone on to be one of their best sellers. I’ve always thought of the dinosaur as being the unofficial mascot of Seibei, especially as it has also popped up on the Ice Wizard hoodie (late 2006? early 2007?) and Dino checkerboard tee (I have no idea of the date, sorry). In January of this year Hot Topic started selling the the tee on the right, which is by a brand called Goodie Two Sleeves, who I know nothing of, though my research suggests they’re pretty big and are suppliers to chain and department stores across America. So there’s about a two and a half year gap between the two tees going on sale.
David’s hope is that G2S stop producing and selling the “Awesome Monster Tee,” and has contacted them to that effect. In reply they have stated that any resemblance of their design to “Sandwich Dinosaur” is completely unintentional. Offers were made to David (I am broadly aware of what the offers were, but I don’t think it is appropriate to share them), stopping selling the “Awesome Monster” was not one of those offers, so David declined what they put on the table.
I think that gets us up to speed. David seems fairly resigned that there is little he can do about this. We’re looking at a David vs. Goliath situation (in this case the David is actually called David, which helps the metaphor) and his one-man-brand can’t really compete with G2S and HT on a legal battlefield. I guess the only way he can console himself is that he’s not the only person that this has happened to, which I would presume isn’t much consolation at all.
Links:
Sandwich Dinosaur tee: here
Awesome Monster tee @ Hot Topic: here
Seibei: here
Goodie Two Sleeves: here [warning: Fash site with some sound]
Original post on the Seibei blog: here
Fantastic Bonanza’s take: here [note: slightly less restrained than mine]
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