Two If By Tee.

As time goes on, I feel as though I may be doomed to run a blog with a title that runs counter to actual content. It has been a couple weeks since I've talked about a singular shirt, and today looks to be no different. Today's reason? Mr. David Creighton-Pester, better known in the shirt world as WanderingBert.

The DCP, as probably no one else calls him, first came onto my radar in April with a shirt.woot daily called Finding Technicolor, a brilliant and fun riff on old-timey cartoons. The style was on target, and the literal splash of color was plenty eyecatching. Even the fickle wooters, known for shunning many a creative daily offering, fell in love long enough to keep it in the game for over 20 weeks, making it not only one of the longest running dailies, but also keeping it very competitive against the more popular derby winners (as of posting, Shirts On Sale lists it as the third longest running daily, and a little stat-interpreting leads one to determine it's the 11th longest running shirt woot has sold).

So why does this matter? At the time of his woot print, David was a fixture at Threadless, yet had never won. In June they finally printed a piece of his. In a blog, he wrote that he found out about the planned print just as he'd submit his 100th piece. That's a lot of designs to slam through without recognition. Threadless apparently agreed... through the month of August, as though making up for lost time, they proceeded to print three more of his designs.

All of this leads to the point of the blog. This week, David scored a dual printing at Threadless... definitely not bad for an artist who seemed neglected for well over a year, and scored his first print not four months ago. I've been led to believe this is by no means the first time Threadless has given a double-print, but it certainly feels like a rarity, so I feel it is my duty to give congratulations where due. I suppose I'll even chat up the prints while I'm at it. I'm a giver!

My favorite of the two is one that I actually didn't like much at all the first time around in scoring: "Graphite For Your Right." It's a fist holding a lightning-bolt shaped pencil. I'm not normally huge on "artist" tees, which is to say designs about making designs. It feels like a very narrow focus, like songs about being in a band. I dabble artistically, but am not able to wield a pencil as an item of power. This, coupled with the main color palette suggestion, was likely a big reason I was no huge supporter on the first go-round. The colors chosen, though, look quite nice, and on a tee it feels a lot more powerful and iconic and overall wearable than it seemed as an image alone. It
definitely changed my mind on it by seeing it actually in print. I doubt it's a buy, but I do enjoy seeing things come out better than they seemed likely to.

"Microwaves Are Just Too Slow" is the other option, and it definitely veers off in a different direction. It's a clear example of the Threadless-style joke tee, and yet another indication that it's not a copyright issue if your art is from the back. A couple bits of this piece are perplexing... why Superman would break a microwave with his fist instead of just opening it, why his microwave would be on the ground for sitting on... but the basic joke is a solid one. Seriously, if I was Superman, I'd use this aspect of my power more than I could count. The solid illustration and impressive use of shirt color certainly only help the cause. Both shirts are quite Threadless, and it leaves no surprise as to why the site has begun printing the designer with such vigor. Congrats again on the double-print, David, or Bert, or whatever persona you'd prefer on the webs. May the prints keep coming.