Militant Geek Custom Shirts

When one thinks of high brow comedy the seedy, light devoid back rooms of a small, indie TShirt shop are probably not the first thing that comes to mind. And committing to producing a fresh strip every Friday is probably a recipe for ruin by week three. However, lofty ambitions are piss-poor cautionary tales without a horrendous crash and burn involved at some point along the way. It is with that rousing send-off that I present, on International TShirt day, the weekly comic featuring the behind the scenes of the tee world:

(those seeing a big blank void in their feedreader will have to pop over to the website to see the embedded flash comic player)

It has been much too long since the Militant Geek store has seen a new t-shirt. While finding incredible geek designs amongst the chaff and bringing them together in one place is rewarding sometimes there is just a shirt I want that doesn’t exist. For that very reason the Militant Geek store exists.

The goal (for now) is to have a new design every other Monday. We kick things off today, on the 16th of June, with a lovely imagining of just what the geek put-down Urban Amish would look like. Often seen in the wild, our wayward techie ruefully clutches his Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. Reflect how you see the plebeians around you. Wear the Urban Amish Homage TShirt to honor those less mentally strapping.

Every week I get a number of TShirt vendors contacting me with their latest and greatest work. When their tee is a great match for the site I try to work it in. Often, however, I either have the entire weeks worth of content planned, I’m in the midst of a theme run or, frankly, I get lazy and take some time off.

Sometimes there are also moral ambiguities. A vendor may not have the most relevant geek apparel but they’re willing to send over samples (for the record I’ve never accepted freebies in exchange for a blog post - I never want the reader to wonder if I’m running something because TEH BOMB or because I’m getting a kickback [which is why the shirts posted with affiliate links are also paired with clearly posted non-affiliate items]). Other times a struggling college student is trying to get his store off the ground and I never get around to featuring his wares. Project Wonderful helps in both those cases. Project Wonderful is a neat online ad service that lets advertisers advertise on only the sites they want to, lets publishers accept only the ads that are worthwhile to their audience, and introduces a good heaping of transparency to the process. If you’ve got a tshirt store you bid and your ad stays there until someone outbids you. It separates out editorial content from site sponsorship - rather than sending me tees for a plug I’ll just refer you to the above-the-fold sponsor block. Tees sites get a way to get involved with Militant Geek on their terms and in their own time, the readers get ads that are relevant to them, and I get money (hopefully) to continue the site.

Got an experience with Project Wonderful? Is this just a crass capitalistic play? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Like many a diligent geek I was avoiding real work this weekend and catching up on my Lego blog posts. A post on the Brother’s Brick Lego blog, entitled ‘Good Lego Blog, Bad Lego Blog‘ caught my attention. In it Dunechaser outlines what separates your puny, only mildly attractive review blog from a strapping, hair on chest, Bounty-cover-model review blog. While writing MilitantGeek I’ve wallowed in my fair share of Tee tedium. While his post was about Lego themed sites we can use his points as a jumping off point to talk about TShirt review blogs. Without further ado and hat-tip to Dunechaser here are the top 5 must-haves for a great TShirt Blog:

1. Give the Designer Credit - With some store fronts (like ThinkGeek) it can be difficult to find the specific designer. In those cases a link to the store is probably enough. But in cases like Etsy the shirt designer is probably not just listed; they’re probably the entire store. Its important to give these people the props they deserve because they’re out creating things of incredible coolness the rest of us can only hope to write about. Finally, it goes without saying, but if you’re just posting shirt pics you think are awesome without any kind of attribution to a storefront or creator so others can get in on the fun you’re just rude.
2. Give Other Blogs Credit - It can be very tempting to just subscribe to a whole bunch of existing TShirt blogs, let them do the dirty work of finding great apparel, and post the best pieces of their work on your blog. There’s nothing illegal about that. However, it doesn’t take long before savvy readers notice that other blogs have exclusives before yours does. Which brings us to…
3. Add Value - Just taking the latest shirts that everyone else is talking about and throwing them into your own blog does not add value - at that point you might as well just wrap your sources into an OPML file and offer that to your audience. On Militant Geek it’s not enough to just post a shirt and an affiliate link back - there’s a gajillion sites out there (I counted) that already do this. I’d like to think that I add a little humor and/or wit to each post (or, barring that, my utter failure in these regards serves as a humorous en devour in and of itself). Remember, just finding a narrow untapped niche (the best geek tshirts) and spending the time to find the best content to fill it may be value add enough.
4. Provide Both Affiliate and Non-Affiliate Links - A common revenue model for several tshirt blogs is to sign up for every tshirt affiliate program they can find and then only cover shirts from those stores. The problem is that this undermines a reader’s trust in the blog. It raises a quandary in the visitor’s mind: “Is this blog linking to this shirt because they truly believe its the bee’s knees? Or are they just doing it because they’re hoping to get a payout?” Affiliate programs aren’t a bad thing. But it is up to the blog writer to treat the audience’s trust with the utmost respect - and that means not selling it out to whatever storefront has the highest % on sales that month. Empower the reader to choose and they’ll be happy to help a site out.
5. Don’t Settle for Crap - While this point may have the biggest ‘duh’ factor its also the easiest to screw up. It’s late. You probably don’t do this for a living. You know you need a post and you’re just willing to grab the next vaguely genre-appropriate shirt you stumble upon. I know, I’ve been there. And with the explosion of print-on-demand tshirt sites online everybody and their colorblind neighbors are churning out mediocre apparel of the derivative kind. (Disclosure: if I see another ‘No Place Like 127.0.0.1′ shirt I’m going to go Jerry Lee Lewis on the nearest keyboard.) Your visitors spend their attention with you because you’re providing great stuff. Settle for so-so content and your audience will settle for another site.

Well, yet another holiday sees the backside of a retreating day. However, while most are forgotten in a torrential rain of “responsibility” this year I actually had some foresight and put together a themed week. Granted, finding romantic items of a geektacular nature isn’t the easiest beat to cover but if it means days of scouring the Internet under the guise of ‘work’ then I’m your man. Of course, the Militant Geek recap seemed to be over about as fast as what comes after the chocolates but before the regret. Oh well. Was it good for you? What was your favorite Valentines Day geek item featured this week?

This just in from the department of external flogging affairs: only 3 days left for free shipping. That’s right: from now till February all orders over $15 to the US and Canada don’t have to pay a single cent toward physical transport. Just make sure you use the code FREESHIPPING07 on checkout.

In February we’re giving the store a much needed enema; make sure you get you pick up that hat or shirt that you had your eye on because it may not make it into our spring lineup.

You can get started with the Militant Geek T-Shirt Shop.

The deals just keep coming! Right before the new year we had a special 20% off sale. If you were too busy playing with your wii you’re still in luck: through the end of January you can get free standard shipping (a $4.99 value). Deliveries must be to the US or Canada and the orders have to be at least $15. But if you’re shopping cart meets those two requirements then use the coupon code FREESHIPPING07 on checkout.

The retired circus monkeys and I will be clearing out old designs soon. Make sure you get yours before they disappear like ill fitting schwag at a tech conference.

If you’ve been waiting for a special sale before buying a MilitantGeek T-Shirt pat yourself on your lazy ass; your procrastination has payed off! Today and tomorrow only (December 30th-31st) the Militant Geek Online Store is having a year end blow-out sale. All designs, all styles are 20% off. All you have to do is enter ‘BEST2006′ at checkout.

20% off December 30th and 31st - After the sale we’re retiring many of the designs so get your favorites now!

(This shilling is hard work. I’m going to lie down now).

At the end of last week, when the readership numbers normally take a nose dive, we at Militant Geek had the pleasant surprise of being linked to by the esteemed Valleywag (which, in Internet terms, is like getting props from the National Enquirer on your muckraking). We can only humbly accept this form of praise and suck in a deep, deep breath - it’s all downhill from here, baby.

When the technical staff consists of geriatric retired circus monkeys and the homeless guy you pay in socks one should just expect that certain liberties will be taken with the website. ‘Working’ and ‘Correctly’ are not guaranteed to live on in blissful union.

We’re working on it and we’ll let you know when we’ve prepared the next round of embarrassment. Ok, the shop links should work (mostly) now. If you see any problems let us know.