comic merch!

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

We've all been laughing/shuddering at some of the art in the comic version of Guilty Pleasures.  Like the thunder thighs and the throw-proportions-to-the-wind attitude.  Now we have something far more disturbing to laugh at:  They're selling merchandise with the comic book art imprinted on it.  I had to look, and I swear, anyone in this community could make better items for sale using one hand and a pack of sharpies.  The most offensive offering, in my humble opinion, were these *extremely sexy* men's boxer shorts with Comic!Jean-Claude emblazoned on the thigh.  

So many questions spring to mind: Who would wear these? Who would make these?  Was it deliberate?  Why are the boxers the cheap white kind that are given away at theme parties, usually bearing the legend "i danced my pants off at _______'s sweet 16"?  

But anyway, i thought i'd share the lolz, because nothing says funny like Anita Blake postage pals.  Not an actual stamp, mind.  But a sticker of some sort with a space for the stamp.  Sorry, LKH.  Elvis can be a stamp.  Not Anita.  


EDIT:  One of the things that has always bothered me is that on almost every piece of merchandise, there is a huge font that reads"Laurell K Hamilton Anita Blake Series" or some incarnation of the statement.  In my humble opinion, merchandise that is successful is subtle, without much fanfare and credit, that allows fans to squee when they see it, and non-fans to wonder what the deal is.  Case in point: I have a black tshirt with a huge yellow pepper on the front with a big bite taken out of it.  That's it.  People will stop me in the street to ask where i got it, what it's about, etc.  Fans of Iron Chef, who get the reference, literally go berserk and ask where they can get one.  That is successful merchandise, it doesn't need a huge font at the bottom proclaiming Iron Chef, and whoever the hell created it. 

Comments

[pandaemonaeum.livejournal.com]

My friend wants the t-shirt with the vampire penguin on it, because she loves anything to do with penguins. Apart from that, I don't know of anyone who wants any of it :/

[dan-lian.livejournal.com]

I looked for about 30 seconds on that site looking at it in sheer shock.. I WANT MY TIME BACK!

[rinkori.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, you'd think with her piles of porn-money she'd be able to hire someone who actually knows how to design merchandise to do her merchandising for her.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

i know, it's almost offensive that this is what they're offering up for sale.

[lovedstrangely.livejournal.com]

she's got million dollar book deals and she uses cafepress for her merch. w.t.f.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

i'm gonna go with the boxers. Can you imagine an intimate setting, a good-looking man removes his pants, and behold! Jean-Claude's face and LKH's name staring right at you. I'd run as fast as my legs would carry me.

[wickedmommy.livejournal.com]

It's a cafe press shop? She has a freaking cafe press shop??? *shakes head*

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

i wouldn't even accept them as a free gift, lol

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

Even when I was still a fan of LKH, I shuddered at her merchandise. I always found it incredibly cheezy and poorly designed. Like someone spent five minutes creating drawings in MS Paint and declared it a MASTERPIECE. Those boxers are just the latest exhibit. I mean, okay boxers are fine... but you don't put a picture like that on there. I mean. Fugly doesn't even come close to the tragedy of those things. If you had had had to have JC on boxers, take out the black background, draw him in black ink (same picture), and toss the logo at the bottom. It would look a hell of a lot nicer, which is damning with false praise.

To me it's just another example of LKH's whoring of her "intellectual" (and BOY do I use that term loosely) property. I'm waiting for her to hire Anita and JC lookalikes to flank her at signings and convention appearances.

Oh wait, she doesn't need an Anita lookalike does she?

[wickedmommy.livejournal.com]

LOL...I looked....I actually looked *sweet 16?" OH yeah..that is something to be proud of.

I don't need bleech..I need a transplant

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

i know! the big black square background surrounding him just screams "i learned how to do a solid-color fill in photoshop"

[tylergrrls.livejournal.com]

Okay, I think this is the most telling thing I've ever seen:

http://www.cafepress.com/lkhprem.17937360 - LKH Print
http://www.cafepress.com/lkhprem.32481943 - Merry Print

[artemis-rex.livejournal.com]

Laughing so goddamn hard at that mental image. Can you imagine one of those LKH fanboys wearing those in preparation for teh hawt sexxors?

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

THIRTY-EIGHT FREAKING DOLLARS!? For a framed (non-signed! even!) photo of an author who really isn't all that famous?!

And that Merry print is effing atrotious.

Oh my ears and whiskers. I can't think of any author who I like enough to put their picture on my wall, even in a tacky poster kind of way. Bookcovers sure (I would kill to have any of Jody Lee's covers, as well as the Kushiel covers)... but not author pictures.

LKH is going to have to make her doors wider at the top than at the bottom so she can get her head through.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

lol, cause pictures of an author from over 10 years ago deserve to be on our walls. in a place of honor!

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

lol, rose petals, maybe a little Enya, fake champagne, and a dude wearing jean-claude boxers...all a part of my fantasy, of course. Except, ya know, for ALL OF IT!

[tylergrrls.livejournal.com]

If I were her, I would not put the pictures up that they traced for that terrible Merry art. ;) I mean, at least pretend that the main characters don't look exactly like her?

[ladyblue99.livejournal.com]

Gee thanks for showing more WTFery from LKH, this stuff is horrendous. And the JC pic, Dear
Brett thanks for ruining a perfectly good mental pic I had of JC, with that metrosexual greasy looking pic. Its awful.
I must spork my eyes.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

LOL i had a blog about that a while back, when i threatened to send my flist greeting cards with gigantic pictures of LKH's face on them XD

[shadwing.livejournal.com]

Most of that is the CafePress 'cost' the main problem with CafePress is that they have a minimum cost per item, usually insane like 15-20 bucks for the shirts anything after that is profit for the artist. And the merch is very low grade, for the cost. The Prints and ceramics are the only things of decent quality.

[tylergrrls.livejournal.com]

My laughing is more over the fact that they seem to be the same picture.

I wanted to double check to see if I was imaging it, so I put them next to each other...

http://www.tapfer.org/images/merrykh.jpg

I'm not imagining it. ;)

[tylergrrls.livejournal.com]

Why stop there?? Get them all t-shirts with her on them! Gosh knows that's what I've always wanted. :D

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

O.o Seriously, that is beyond WTF.

That Merry print is six steps past atrocious. What happened to balance? Color? DESIGN? And that font? The the placement? No. Just... look, is a tutorial on design that hard to find? Maybe her kid made it. I'll accept it as an effort if a child of less than 12, with 30 minutes of experience in Photoshop created it.

I won't go into the prices for either of those things. 'Ridiculous' sums it all up nicely.

[artemis-rex.livejournal.com]

Fantasy ... or nightmare?

Tonight, on "When Fanboys Attack!"

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

lol, that and the bumper stickers that proclaim the driver to be an Anita fan. Which should really just say "I will ruin my car *and* let people know i like pr0n simultaneously"