A few people liked the “I dare you to club this SEAL” shirt on this page so I thought I’d redraw it and see if there’d be any interest if I put it up at CafePress or something. It’s possible I’m in the wrong business doing the whole “do a webcomic and sell merch” thing since I almost never buy T-Shirts with funny/clever stuff online. So I don’t know, would anyone be interested in this as a shirt or poster or whatnot?
Update: Here it is!
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Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
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"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I believe the term I am looking for begins with “Hell,” and ends with “Yes”
As a SEAL fan (as much as non US guy can get) I say YES!
Someday, ‘when my ship comes in’ yes. Very much the kind of thing that appeals to me in t-shirts.
The emphasis is on the wrong part, works betterer (imo) if it was “I dare you to club THIS Seal”, but would be good as a poster (maybe even stickers, big enough to cover notebooks, the old fashioned kind, that you write in with pens/pencils/crayons)
It’s a reference to the Navy SEALs.
Yes, knew the reference, emphasising the ‘THE’ would still work even for those who don’t get it
Thinking back on it, that did make me stumble a bit in reading the line, the first time I saw it. It only took a moment for the Navy seal implication to make itself clear, as moonlantern indicates, but if you are looking for immediate impact recognition for merchandising, the smoother the understanding the better. I would agree with Guesticus that it scans better as “I dare you to club this SEAL.”
I had a brief search for “SEAL” to see if there was a particular font associated with it, but nothing leapt out. However, there does seem to be a fondness to show it in gold. So that may help some folks to join the dots quicker too, by showing that it has significance other than as stress in a sentence.
I wish I knew some S.E.A.L.S that I could send this too.
L.O.V.E. it! Poster excellent idea!!! Awesome T-Shirt! Yeah man! This old man is definitely interested!!
Now, can I have permission to print it & put it up by my desk at work till you get the merch ready?
Oh, and I’d definitely put your URL on it.
Sure I don’t see why not.
Thanks! I did. Getting attention already. :)
You almost have enough memes to start your own chan. DaveB chan? Sounds like fun to me.
I frequent reddit and a few other haunts online. I’ve been to 4chan but I don’t frequent it.
Not sure if it would have generic appeal in the context of merchandising, but I thought I would mention that Panic-attack-under-the-desk is still getting favourites on Deviant Art. Obviously as a fan, I love it. But part of that comes with the background leading up to that incident. So it shows that the image itself is strong enough to have general appeal. Perhaps the heightened glowing effects of the orbs in the shade? Or, maybe, going under a desk for a panic attack.
I think the former might be worth noting for future Halo images, in appropriate circumstances. It certainly has appealed to fans in the past, even when subdued by ambient lighting, judging by comments. But if you want merchandising that might appeal to the general public, without any specific setting context, perhaps a variant on the latter, with a suitable punch-line, may be marketable on Amazon?
Yes I would buy two as presents up to $25 each
I think it’s awesome as hell, but I wouldn’t wear it. For 2 reasons.
1: It’s a white tshirt, I avoid wearing white tshirts as they stain way too easily.
2. Im in the military. And am in no way a SEAL. I’d find it rather insulting to the real SEALS if I where to wear it.
Presumably from the point of view of implying that you are a SEAL in a context where it would be plausible that you are? Which would not be an issue for most of us, I am sure. Other than that scenario, I can only read it as being complimentary to SEALs. The main thrust being that if a seal cub somehow had the training of a SEAL it would kick the butt of anyone who tried to club it. Ridiculously implausible and therefore funny, yes. But insulting, no. Unless I am missing something?
Basically, the insult is based on the honor system and the Military adage of “if you don’t RATE it, you don’t WEAR it”.
You don’t wear badges, rank, medals, or claim titles that you haven’t earned, it just isn’t done.
A range of colour options always sells a lot better. Everyone has their own preferences. As Roto expresses above. In my case I would always go for a T-shirt with a darker background myself, the closer to black the better. So a white/grey on black being the ideal, in my particular case. You might also want to try the primary colours of red, green and blue.
You may need to test the basic design on a variety of contrasting colours to see if you need to do, for example, one optimised for a dark background. And then print them on a variety of materials. Basically though, the more colour options you can fit in the better the sales will be.
Not to pick nits, but isn’t yellow the third primary colour? Green being a mix of Yellow + Blue
It is actually quite a complex subject. There are several different types of primary colour. Depending on whether you are talking about light, materials or art. For our purposes all three overlap, which complicates things even more.
If you are talking about mixing dyes to make colours then the primaries are cyan, magenta and yellow. Mixed in different combinations they can make the other colours. Primary colours that artists tend to choose are different again. Which is where your combination of red, yellow and blue come in. This will concern DaveB when he is drawing the subjects. But, in this case, we need to concern ourselves with the end product that will be on the shelves, rather than what colour combinations are used to create the background material.
The reasons I chose to use red, green and blue though are twofold. One being that they are popular ones in fashion. The other being that if talking about light, they are the primaries. Mixtures of which can be used to make the other visible colours. Not in and of itself a good reason to choose that set for this discussion. But the side effect that our eyes are optimised to distinguishing them due to that fundamental property of light is. Barring unlucky folks who are colour blind, anyhow.
I did consider including yellow in my list initially, because it has a special place in the visual spectrum for this solar system. Our sun being yellow means that yellow light stands out more than any other. It is a popular choice for reflective jackets and the like partly because there is more of it to reflect in daylight. And partly because our eyes are evolved with that factor affecting them so make maximum use of it.
Although it is a good choice for cars and warning clothing if you want to minimise your chances of an accident, I felt that it is not as popular for general wear clothing. Just judging by what I see out and about, rather than researching it. Like white, stains do stand out more so folks who are concerned about that will avoid it. Psychology and culture also come into it. Yellow is not viewed as a very macho colour, in Western influenced culture, so guys who are concerned about that will avoid it. This is clearly a product that would appeal to guys, so bearing in mind gender preferences is important for marketing it.
So yellow, as you say, is indeed a primary colour, but not in the same context as the ones I was using.
I would probably buy several.
Another YES from me.
Heh. Reminds me of a line in Matthew Ruff’s Fool on the Hill where a campus group wants to teach baby seals self-defense.
I don’t have a major problem with hunters harvesting/hunting seal pups for a living. That said I would never do such a thing nor would I wear/purchase any seal pup products. Being retired military I have a great deal of respect for SEALs and I love the play on words. I would buy at least 2 Ts for me and my grand daughter.
i forsee people wearing this shirt and getting clubbed.
or going clubbing…
Ok now I have a mental image of that SEAL out on the dance floor in a club. Dancing with his gun held above his head.
Now we know the truth about SEAL TEAM 6 :P *joking*
This is the lesser known SEAL team 6.6
You sure He’s not from SEAL team 6.6-6?
= Seal team 0.6?
No, that’s a dash, not a minus (or ‘hyphen’ if you want to be really correct)
Reminds me of Serge the seal, a character from Aaagh! It’s the Mr. Hell Show!
I have had better luck as a customer using Spreadshirt. If you have larger merch plans, try Topatoco, I think you might fit their requirements. CafePress was annoying as a seller. I have (so far) heard good things about Zazzle. Good luck!
I’ll see how Zazzle works out but I’ll keep Spreadshirt in mind. I think Topatoco is invite only. I need to build up a decent store before they’ll consider me.
I TOTALLY want a sticker for my car with this image on it!!!! A grey t-shirt with the image, I would consider, but I totally want a bumper sticker. If you ever do a Kickstarter project to raise money to print/sell books, this would be a cool reward item.
there can enver be enough funny T-shirts. so YES!
I still have my “Always. Expect. Ninjas” shirt
Is there a “Got Cookies?” T shirt yet?
i have only one thing to say
shut up and take my money!! ^-^
aaaaaannd bought ^-^
Just went back to that page and realized that the mayor is “Big” Mike from Chuck… Awesome