Yes, I Know About Today’s Teefury.com Shirt
Posted on February 1, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 29 Comments
And yes, it’s cute. If you want it you should run over to the site today, as I understand they generally stock any single shirt of one day only.
A couple of folks have suggested the shirt was inspired by my book, but I think as a rule we can assume that any random reference to a red shirt traces back to Star Trek — as indeed my book did. I have an ego, but I also know the more likely explanation.
But this is America! You should throw a hissy fit and sue them! There is no room in our media culture for well adjusted egos with a proper sense of perspective. (Just finished Redshirts by the way. Had to put it down several times just to laugh my ass off. Really enjoyed it!)
While I agree that Star Trek is undoubtedly the origin – I think you can take credit for reminding people about what happens to Red-Shirted crew members!
For what it’s worth, I bought the Sheldon-Evil Wheaton/Dr. Horrible-Captain Hammer mashup t a few months back and their t-shirts are a very nice quality.
I have an earlier Red-shirt design from Teefury. Wish I’d remembered to wear in to SFContario when you were the guest, but oh well. Will need to make sure to pack it for the next convetion we both attend.
LOL, uh yeah John. Redshirt references/humor have been around much longer than your book. But I understand there are those who would think otherwise.
I *hate* TeeFury. Their one-day-only gimmick removes the ability for the geek to say, “I’ll think about this and maybe buy it tomorrow.” No time at all for common sense to prevail. Every shirt is in the impulse aisle – and geeks are known for their impulse power. Naturally, you can subscribe to a daily email (or RSS Feed) so you don’t have to actually visit the site every day to know what the daily design is. It’s a loathsome website.
I too purchased a redshirt-referenced design awhile back. Perhaps the same one as KW Ramsey. I’m using that as an excuse not to buy today’s, though I think I like today’s better. Damn.
Here’s a link to a gallery of their past shirts (You can’t buy them. Every once in a while they’ll have a mystery grab bag sale where they’ll sell past shirts, but other than that, their day is passed.) However, you’ll get a good idea of whether or not you want to subscribe to their daily evil by feed or email.
http://www.teefury.com/archive/
If a different vendor came up with a similar Browncoat-themed design, well, that would be something.
…And having said that, I’m going to reflect on patterns and how Browncoats are (IMO) the complement to Redshirts… at least in every universe but Scalzi’s.
I just find it baffling that people continually think they need to point this stuff out to you.
What makes someone think that you, an early Internet adopter and purveyor of fine technology writing for decades, would not be aware of something that they, most likely a comparative newbie to the Internet, were able to come across?
If the shirt also depicted borgovian land worms, THEN you could safely say it was inspired by you.
TransDutch, I agree. They are evil. Evil. so I *only* bought one shirt. Now I get to wait for them to pack it and then to ship it. It should arrive well before my next con. I know I will regret this, but I’m tired of being the common sense guy who doesn’t buy geeky stuff.
Yeah – if Paramount didn’t threaten you over “appropriating” a bit of ST:TOS fanwank (and how did they not, given they’re a greedy bunch of SoBs?), how can you turn around and threaten a geek T-Shirt manufacturer over appropriating your appropriation…?
I’m glad John understands that he doesn’t loom large in the public imagination, and that the number of people who know about Star Trek is several orders of magnitude larger than the number of people who know about his novel. We can all hope that his fan base someday catches up, of course.
Who is the best-known SF writer outside our little ghetto? Still Heinlein? Maybe Clarke? L. Ron Hubbard? Neil Gaiman? George RR Martin?
And what tropes from written SF (not film) would be most familiar to non-fans? The old Adam & Eve gag? Nanotechnology?
@Cambias: Now I am intrigued. When did George R.R. Martin write science fiction?
Teefury’s ‘one-day-only’ is frustrating, but you can often click on the artist’s website and find the shirt from another vendor. Usually for lots more than $10, but hey, sometimes you’ve just gotta have it.
“We can all hope that his fan base someday catches up, of course.”
Scalzi conventions. OMFG. Forget the Kool-Aid – don the Redshirt.
@jjloelw: Off the top of my head: Nightflyers and the stories collected in Tuf Voyaging.
@Byron (10:45 am): This is how the Internet of today works. None of us—no matter how long we’ve been online—are able to keep track of everything on our own; we depend upon the tweets of others to point out shiny things, and are obliged to point such things out ourselves when the occasion arises.
@jjloelw: Also the nicely terrifying Sandkings. Still gives me nightmares occasionally.
@Cambio: NPR Science Friday book club was discussing Crichton’s Andromeda Strain recently, and they asked a caller who his favorite SF authors were. Predictably (and a little depressingly), he answered Asimov and Bradbury.
Thanks for the link, I just bought it.
@jjoelw “When did George R.R. Martin write science fiction?”
Beginning in 1967 and running through at least 2005’s novel Shadow Twin (written with Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham). He’s got an extensive body of work — he created and edited the long-running Wild Cards shared-worlds series, and wrote lots of SF: novels like Tuf Voyaging and creepy stories like “Sandkings.”
Admittedly, he always wrote fantasy as well, but in the ’70s and ’80s he was known as a SF writer.
In my opinion, GRRM was a much better SF writer than he is a fantasy writer, and it’s a damned shame that he couldn’t be as successful doing SF as fantasy. I’d love to see a Bigass SF Series tearing up the bestseller lists and inspiring a soap opera on HBO.
When are you going to sign some books? I think that the away team kits are much nicer than these shirts. I can order each of the away team items separately on the site, but it appears that the primary item that is holding up the kits are the autographed books. I’m thinking about going behind your back, and asking your better half hide the biscoff spread, and stop making you pancakes until you sign (twisting handlebar mustache). After all – you are on a diet. You were the one who posted about how you write to make money. How much more money do you get for an autographed copy of your book?
So who’s with me? team, Team, TEAM!
Hi John,
Should you produce a T-shirt in the future, a Hanes Beefy-T will last for years. Note – I’ve no connection with Hanes. YMMV.
I was blissfully oblivious until now. That site is EVIL
“When did GRRM write SF?” –SERIOUSLY?
I was still able to order (I ordered two, because they’re funny) at 2:25 am CST on Saturday. I don’t know how late their “after hours” ordering goes, but it goes at least that late.
@NotThatFrank What’s wrong with having Bradbury as your favourite writer? I read tons of new books, but Bradbury will alway be my favourite.
I need a new dresser just to keep all my teefury shirts. Their daily email is dangerous. Thankfully they have a lot of video game-themed ones that I can happily ignore. But when they have the Evil Dead, StarWars, and Lovecraftian shirts, I can’t help myself.
For those who missed out, ThinkGeek’s “EXPENDABLE” shirt might be a reasonable subtitute.
Link to shirt on ThinkGeek site: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/9722/?rkgid=275668648&cpg=ogpla&source=google_pla&gclid=CPDSyKmUmLUCFa57QgodvjMAJw
– yeff