Killing Yourself to Live

We love the tees we talk up here, and love seeing them print pretty much anywhere, because they deserve it. There are, of course, the rare pieces that we feel deserve more: I always get a little sad when a contest watch alum finds its way to Threadless' 12 club instead of a more widespread circulation, am saddened when a designer gives up and wastes amazing work on a Direct To Garment print site, and then there's that horribly chunky bastardization of a casajordl piece that LaFraise did. We don't like to talk about these things, though. Which is why ThirstyFly's Zombie and the Butterfly (now The Butterfly Defect) printing at woot makes me frustrated. Shirt.woot and I have a love/hate relationship, but decisions like this are almost more frustrating than them perpetuating stale Chuck Norris humor. This illustration is stunning, crisp, detailed... and originally was mocked as a sideprint, starting at the bottom. Woot's rendition loses almost all of the charm of the first. It's hard to say whose fault this is... whether they forced the artist to make changes, or the artist changed it for them... but either way, it makes the piece feel wasted. The tilted image, the smaller image, the cut-off, centered image... it all creates a far less appealing design, and I can't help but be upset that the image will now never have a chance to become what it deserves. Woot owns it, and the design will, like most all woot designs of artistic worth, die instantaneously on the reckoning. The alterations will do it no favors in life or sales numbers. I love seeing something of this quality print at woot, but it really pains me to know it needed to be compromised for them to print it.

In the end, though, our contest watch pieces are our babies. Some of you might well still love this, and if so, you deserve to get your hands on it. It's almost guaranteed to be dead by the 21st, though, so be sure to be speedy about your decision.