I withdrew the Purfin T-shirt. After 24 hours there were still zero sales, and that was too slow a start. I’m trying very hard to provide merch, but I also need to meet some minimum order numbers to even break even. My current rule on tees are I need at least 20 orders to do a print run, and if I get zero orders in the first day, I pull it. That said, a couple people asked me to re-tool the design, and I’m playing with it. Nothing satisfactory yet.
In the meantime, you can continue to support Spacetrawler by visiting my TopatoCo store, where you can get all things Spacetrawler, Little Dee, and Bruno.
And lastly, a picture of Cadfael keeping me company while I work.
Is that pink tentacled thing a female? Dimitri is being unusually compassionate toward a creature whose stated intent is to kill him and all the others. That usually means sex for Dimitri.
PS: You should give us a few days to think it over in this economy before you pull merch. We can make suggestions and then it may sell better. Such as some snappy saying under the Purfin. With the US about to default and the unknown economic trickle-down repercussions, we are justifiably cautious right now.
In Dimitri’s defence, he was willing to save the alien before he scanned her. I think the added hassle of hiding was too much for him to do for nothing. Lucky for her she met his criteria.
@War_Pig, She is indeed female.
And I see your point about the slow economy…. but still, if among the thousands of people who read this I don’t make a single sale on a new item, I still think that’s a fair barometer that it’s not quite hitting the mark.
But suggestions? Sure. I’m playing around with it being two-colors (3 if you count the background). Here’s where it stands now, although I don’t think it’s quite there yet. So if anyone has any additional ideas, let ’em fly.
Dmitri is the nicest self-serving bastard out there. <3
For comparison, can you toss up a shot of the previous Purfin shirt design?
Oh, I wish I could edit/delete comments – the previous design was just in the previous strip’s sub-section.
The boat-part doesn’t really look much like a boat, without shading, at this angle. My guess would be possibly to go with a new drawing of it, like how it’d look in the Purfin Catalog (what with little blurbs and arrows pointing out the features)?
How about a t-shirt using the Emily sketch from your philly_composite on the 6/22/11 page? Add the name “Emily” in cool letters and I know just the Emily I’d buy it for. Krep and Nogg might look cool on shirts too, even though I don’t know anybody named Krep or Nogg.
Bad-ass rocket ships firing exploding munitions ! ! + Catchy one liner = Higher likely-hood of consumer approval.
A basic connection there, that you don’t have to work on.
Nobody knows what a Purfin is- you might sell these t shirts out in the desert where they run those sand rails in the dunes, but they still wouldn’t know what a Purfin is. Concept is too new.
Drink some more gunpowder….
It needs more limbic fizzler.
Well, the Purfin doesn’t have much going for it – either the cool factor, or any sort of background. It appeared in a couple of panels and that’s it. I’d say you might have better luck with a run of character-themed designs instead, maybe with a quote or a personal philosophy in a nutshell. Hell, I’d even buy a Dusty shirt, if I had a spare limb or two for cross-continental S&H.
The way this is written and drawn it is a snap to imagine it as a live action space opera/comedy/sex romp/butt kicking adventure. With loads of sentiment in the background. Wish I had come extra money. Between my fixed income and the shitty economy it doesn’t bode well for purchases. But I hope to eventually get at least a T-shirt or better yet a published book. Hang in there.
I still say the Purfin needs full-color, exactly like strip 152 panel 13 — dark knobby tires, gray chassis, shaded blue hull, gray/green fin/engine pack and a giant red/orange/yellow/white flameburst behind it all. If it’s gonna say BRAOUUUUU!! then it should be jumping right off the chest.
If you really think the Purfin isn’t going to sell, and you’re looking for a T-shirt design with a broader appeal, how about the whole cast? The group shot on the back cover of book 1 would be great. The front cover art is a bit busier, but it adds the ship, Kuu-Drahc and the always-popular Potty-Bot, and has the added “bursting through the T-shirt” border thing going for it.
I’d buy any of these designs, but again they’d all look best in full-color. Bruno and Dee were black-and-white strips, but we’re all accustomed to always reading Spacetrawler in full-color (both online and in the books) and black-and-white diminishes it somehow. I was always disappointed by Calvin&Hobbes books that reprinted the Sunday strips in black-and-white. Just sayin’…
Ooooh dear. I don’t think Dmitri would really be concerned if the alien was female or not, anyway. Would he?
I read the blog entry comment and I was thinking “Cadfael… Cadfael… maybe that’s what he named his coffee cup? Wait, what’s that in his left hand? Oh!”
@Glennnn: So, instead of “Brauuu” something like “Defenders of the awesome” or “The most awesome escape of the century”? (the most awesome escape vehicle?)
@Quinch and @CompaniaHill –
I think character-themed designs t-shirts could be printed single color and still be good looking and less expensive.
“BEEP” + the look on Dimitri’s face as he views the results… great punchline!
Re: the Purfin M-32 t-shirt
[Christopher – I’m going to give my critique without my usual MN nice sprinkled through. But that makes me feel kind of bad, so consider this my disclaimer of your continuing fabulousness.]
– When I looked at it on the tee, I thought the image was placed too high up on the shirt and also a bit too large.
– I can’t tell that the flame coming out the back is the flame without the benefit of color. It needs something to make it more ‘flame-like’. In the image above, it looks like a loose cord.
– There does need to be shading or something. This drawing is not capturing the ultimate coolness that is the Purfin M-32 😉
– I **love** the idea above of making it like an advert. In doing that, I suggest:
> not having the people on the vehicle
> getting rid of the “Braauuu”
> making a slogan for the vehicle… something that indicates a) this is a cool, fast vehicle, and b) this is science fiction. I can’t think of a perfect slogan at the moment.
“Purfin M-32: The Extra-terrestrial ATV”
“Trust the Purfin M-32 for all your intergalactic escapes”
“Planetary Adventures Begin with the Purfin M-32”
> it could be an ad with Pierrot standing next to the purfin in his space suit, saying something like “My escape from an alien prison was a success! Thanks, Purfin M-32!”
Or:
“The Purfin M-32,
Air, Land, and Sea
Preferred transport of bad-ass heroes everywhere!”
Of course, Chris would beat out any suggestion I could make as a snappy addition. I don’t write that sort of thing. I ghost speeches and papers on the side from farming.
After all, the Dimitri shirt would not have been so cool without the wording. Without it, it was a sort of cool shirt. But adding; “Have your bar-bot synth you a frozen-cold Limbic Fizzler…and visit the stars” turned it immediately into geek-bait.
Thank you all for such awesome thoughts! 🙂
This one is attributed to Da Vinci: An all-terrain vehicle is a vehicle that can travel even where there isn’t terrain
(He was trying to sell his flying machines)
@ Prairie: Glad you liked the idea. And I have to agree with “Take the people out of the vehicle.” You can barely make out that Pierrot has a face as-is!
@MercuryFlash – Agreed, Chris’s single-character ink-only convention drawings look great.
@Prairie – Of course! It’s a running gag that Dimitiri’s primary (only?) use of the Approxiscan is as a check for sexual compatibility. See strips 31, 46, 71, 91, 128…
Hmm, it’s hard to tell with the alien laying on the deck bleeding, but with face-tentacles and hooves, is it a Flimboulxian? I’m already looking forward to seeing Krep’s reaction…
@Prairie/@Frank – For the T-shirt, I can see the vehicle alone ad-style, but it needs its passengers escape-style. I trust Chris to draw Pierrot legibly at T-shirt scale, even if it gets blobby on the web preview. Compare viewing the strip on the web versus the book.
@Frank- No. Totally back to the drawing board. New concept/image.
“I’m on a boat” (sorry, song stuck in my head…) Then again, what if the Purfin M-32 sported a “T-Pain” vanity plate? 🙂
“If at first you don’t escape, keep trying until your Purfinect it!”
“Purfin M-32 – the tool of heroic excapists”
The alien’s name isn’t Babar, is it…?
I’d totally buy a shirt with Martina’s Dad’s “HAW!” face on it.
I second DiTaykan’s suggestion. 😉
@diTaykan, Haw! 🙂
UGG has been absolutely a name regarded by people of virtually any age and of virtually any nation nowadays. What contributes to its great success probably the most must be that fantastic material. Originating on the search beach of Australia, it had been found incomparable comfortable by the Aussie nearly ages ago. Sheep shearers who could get the best part with sheepskin used it in order to wrap on their feet all year around owing to a shortage of the sun. You may hear folks related UGG with ugly boots, don you? It is right completely. An interesting story explains us “ugly” comes out due to the first line of shoes from a company manufacturing sheepskin shoes are 100% ugly. Who knows whether this is true? However, people tend to like comfort on these sheepskin boots more than paying attention to whether they are certainly not beautiful later. Asking any one who owns a couple of sheepskin boot why to settle on them, you will get similar answer of just a new sweet smile or any tacit wink?
[url=http://www.fayetteart.com/p-48.html]http://www.fayetteart.com/p-48.html[/url] 2013????UGG ?? ?????? Dakota Boots ??????????
[url=http://www.fayetteart.com/p-104.html]http://www.fayetteart.com/p-104.html[/url] ???????UGG ??? ????? Classic Short ???????
The worldwide reputation on UGG boots is just not reflected on common people just like kids, college students, working people and etc. Well-known celebrities such because Paris Hilton, Solange Knowles, Vanessa Williams were photographed wearing these at the same time. Can this be an effective retort on their “ugly” appearances? Do you think these beautiful women are willing to harm their charming pictures? They will not unquestionably! Australian twin-faced merino sheepskin presents UGG boots with sophisticated and sleek images functionally. While being folded along, their exposed sheepskin might appear to be showing its incomparable ease and comfort and luck loved by means of numerous people from several nations. Some of us tend to think they are somewhat luxurious to wear. However, is there any else reason preferable than being dynamic plus enjoying cold winter? Sheepskin boots enable us to be regaled even in this coldest days.