Militant Geek Custom Shirts

Last week I briefly mentioned the pending launch of shirt.woot, Woot’s t-a-day site. The thought of applying Woot’s incredible Geek-centric deals with merchandise that one could wear was titillating.

This week they did launch and (so far) it is. Day one featured an extremely lovely gaming homage called ‘Sore Thumbs’. Day two featured an exploded-diagram view of a vaguely Transformers-like robot. If they can continue to keep the quality up (a challenge considering they are expected to induce geek-gasms every single day) they will go straight to the short list of favorite sites.

There have been some complaints that there isn’t a ’so-slow-its-free’ shipping option for the shirts. It will also be interesting to see if Woot’s approach - one-shirt-for-a-limited-time as opposed to a stable catalog - will attract more casual shoppers. But for now its exciting to see such a great resource for impulse geek clothing purchases take shape.

Seen on music videos, commercials, and even shoddily taped wedding receptions the Robot is the dance the refuses to die. Perhaps it is its emphasis on awkward movement that makes it accessible to the masses. Perhaps it’s a misplaced Jetsons-like future yearning that will never be. Perhaps its that damn Styx song that keeps the robot a rigid spasm away.

For whatever reason The Tee Party’s ‘Do the Robot’ captures our delightful cultural dementia one right angle at a time. Men’s shirts are printed on heavyweight cotton and start at $19.99.

Well, this week we’ve been pretty robot heavy, what with all the Transformers this, the Transformers that, and the dreaded Transformers other. So it would only be fitting if we ended the week in similar fashion with this nice little tee from Radioactive Panda. The price is $18 ($15 + $3 shipping in the US) and quite affordable for a clever little design.

The cartoon Transformers movie originally came out in 1984. At that time the world learned several important things:

1. Having an all hair-metal soundtrack (including the incredibly cheese-o-riffic “You’ve Got the Touch”) seriously dates the film
2. Orsen Wells had clearly hit bottom
3. don’t kill off the beloved franchise mainstay in the first third of the movie

Thankfully the live action adaptation out this week has taken those lessons to heart and thrown the previous cannon in the crapper. Case in point is the new Optimus Prime. His semi form has been updated, flame retarded, and in looking as heroic as ever on this T-shirt available from eMerchandise. The threads are a steal at only $18.99. Welcome back Prime - we’ve missed you.

While we’re mentioning awesome Transformers T-shirts (in celebration of the live action Transformers movie opening this week) we thought we’d mention the retro re-issues from NerdyShirts. All the remembered goodness from a wasted childhood is here - the Optimus Prime headshot, Optimus Prime with retro typeface year-of-death, the Deceptacons a’runnin’, and the movie poster Tee.

Today one of biggest events for any geek who grew up in the 80’s is about to happen: The Live Action Transformers Movie. And while many fan boys loath having their childhood marbles in Michael Bay’s hands, the trailers (thus far) have yet to crush my fragile memories.

To prepare for this ultimate re-imagining of childhood mythos ThinkGeek has released a set of Transformers Tees. Just like the toys, however, these shirts are more than meets the eye. As the included image suggests, these shirts are animated for your seizure inducing pleasure. From the product description:

• EL Lit Glowing T-Shirts feature either the Autobot or Decepticon Logos
• Battery Pack fits in small interior pocket inside shirt
• Button on battery pack controls Animation style
• 2 AAA Batteries Required
• Battery pack is removable, shirt must be hand washed

The price is a bit steep - $34.99 - but what better way of displaying true fandom?

Yesterday I profiled a brand spanking new robot tee from Threadless. Today’s robot shirt depicts the dark side of human-metalman relations. It’s from Oddica, the appropriately named purveyors of detailed, quirky, and - dare I say - odd designs. In the selected shirt we see a large robot of boxy variety rendering suburbia asunder. Of course, after watching James Howard Kunstler on the topic I think I’m ready to side with those whose mommas are snowblowers.

Friendly Robot by Rocky Davies at Oddica is printed on American Appearal and is available for $20.

Threadless is quickly becoming the reason why I look forward to Mondays. Why? Because that’s the day that they unveil their latest and greatest apparel. Today was no exception with the usual interesting/clever/beautiful designs. In particular interest to the Geek crowd is Travis Pitts’ Diodes Are a Girls Best Friend tee. Featuring a teal rocketing robot and cheetah bikini clad heroine it’s at once playful as it is an adept commentary on the events of the recent G8 summit…

… just kidding on that last part. But it is a kickass t-shirt. What geek doesn’t love robots and cartoon sensuality?

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