Yes, Karl Long, THE T-Critic who runs a wildly successful blog called (appropriately) TCritic.com now has a tee shop. He’s got the first of a promised many designs up and he’s blogging about it to his large audience.

Another blogger who dabbles in business, as the comic suggests, is Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. He’s gained a considerable amount of scorn over the years for positively covering companies that he has an investment in or is friends with the founders of. So what is different about the #1 t-shirt reviewer online now covering his own wares?

• The Stakes are Different – Whereas a glowing review on TechCrunch can make or break a company by sending investment dollars, high profile press, and customers to a company a tee blog’s power is very small in comparison. We can direct purchases but a review (or lack of it) isn’t going to kill a company.
• For Tees, Trying to Fill a Need in the Marketplace is About Art, Not Money – I’m sure Karl is hoping his new venture makes money. We all know that pennies-per-pageview isn’t the path to riches. Having his own clothing line means he keeps more of the profit made from a sale. However, this isn’t the kind of industrial effort that can be flipped to IPO or bought by Google. The motivation is to product works of art and make some scratch while doing it.
• It’s just a Shirt, Man – Perhaps this should have gone under ‘The Stakes are Different’ but it bears repeating: if one was going to launch an evil plot to bilk an audience there are more profitable ways than producing great tees.

I wish Karl the best of luck with his store, welcome him to the headache of tee production, and look forward to covering the geekier designs here.