First Time Long Time

A wise man once said, "fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice... you can't get fooled again." My good friends, I feel I have fooled you tenfold with my long absences, and fooled many of my good constituents as well. You may, perhaps, give thanks, however. 'Tis nearly the holidays, and what sort of promoter of all things awesome and t-shirt would I be if I was not around to guide you through this tumultuous time? Remember, an educated consumer is a consumer which doesn't buy unlicensed, non-parody work. I have a tee review and a couple missed site review opportunities in the works, so good things will, hopefully, be coming your way, if I can get some steam back in the last days of the year.

Today is a good day to come back, because it also marks the return of one of the more intriguing of seasonal lines, the Ropeadope Collective. Ropeadope seems to focus most on music on their downtime, but this is the second tee series they will be releasing, with such names as Bootsboots, Qetza and Wotto in their new lineup, so you know they're serious about the tee game too, despite the waggish name. For me, it's a little bittersweet, as more of their designs seem to be focusing on the brand (even if the fine folks at Seibei have contributed a swell one), but it also has incredibly sick designs such as Mike Friedrich's Discowl, which is as funky as they come. I have a bit of a weakness for purple, but that pink and lime-ish, muted neon color scheme knocks it out of the park. It's "hip," for what that's worth, in a retro way: it's a color scheme 20, 25 years old, but coming back in vogue, coupled with timeless, slick illustration. If these guys are going to keep taking directions like this, I am going to keep waiting for awesome new lines. Check 'em out now before the cyber-monday rush... they seem to even have stray sizes from a few of last season's designs.