For sea's a jolly good fellow

Happy birthday to tee... happy birthday to tee... happy birthday Singularitee... happy birthday to teeeeee.

Yes, if memory serves me right, today is the one year anniversary of this here blog, and I'm expecting to bring you guys some new awesomeness every one of these first 7 days of September (that's all week, y'dig?) culminating with something awesome on Monday. Stay tuned!

That said, it is with mixed glee and sadness that we announce the fifth place finisher in the wonderous DBH10K... Umibozu, by thestray. This was one of two pieces I truly loved in the top-20, so I'm ecstatic to see it print, but the ecstasy was a blow to the chest when I finally saw it printed. It's too big, which is ironic considering how one of the selling points of the piece was the oversized design. As printed, though, it's too much... the scene of the creature rising from the deep now becomes the creature, not the rising. The backdrop helped frame the creature's immensity, and now it just looks gawky. On some of the smaller sizes, the ship is hardly even visible due to this scale decision. Also, there's a lack of color, due to the omission of the ship's brown. It's apparently due to a 3-color limit for oversized pieces, but it puts the knife deeper into this piece's heart. I can't honestly believe that DBH accepted this piece, and then put it in the running for 10K, without considering "can we print this as shown?" If the answer was "no," we should never have been allowed to vote for it. We should never have had it selected as a top-20 for a huge prize (can you imagine if this printed like this and also won 10K? Ludicrous!).

The good news, of course, is it printed, and for thestray, it's pretty amazing to make it to 5th in a contest like this to gain your first print. It also looks way better than it did when I originally saw it, which is why I posted the unofficial picture above (the official model poses look unforgivable on the magnitude of Judas betraying Jesus). Therefore, even as it is, there will be some who will still wear the amazing art as a less amazing tee. I'd even pick it up adequately sale-priced. Some people might even like it better this way (though I don't know who). Still, it hurts all the same. It's a huge blow to DBH's credibility and reputation as the best place to get an oversize print (or any artistic piece) printed well, and it seems like a failure that could have been avoided thusly: rejecting the piece early on for not fitting the print capacities. This shirt was to be awesome, but it was not what anyone who voted it into 5th voted on. There's a part of me that feels every fan of this shirt should be obligated to write to DBH customer service. They didn't give us what we were told we were going to get with our vote, and that is what customers deserve and have a right to: what was advertised. But then, who can really expect the site to care about quality if it wouldn't give that quick perusal to start with. I mean, this is a contest decided on pure votes. Quality never need enter into the equation.