Woosh

Running a little behind today, friends, so I'll skip the newspost. But here... have a comic! Another arrives Wendesday.

-Sam Logan

Sam and Fuzzy Q & A:  Diplomatic Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!

"Um... so is Tshirt Diplomacy a real store? Or is it just an April Fools joke? Because some of the shirts are kind of... strange." -Alex

T-Shirt Diplomacy is totally a real store! But don't worry. I think a few thought it might be a joke. It would explain why the management seems to have decided to adorn the site with this banner:

Between you and me, I think the reason some of the shirts seem strange is because not all of the staff of shirt creators have the greatest understanding of human culture. (Although they certainly seem to think they do.) I think the polite thing is to not point it out, and enjoy it whenever they accidentally hit on something brilliant. Like whatever is happening here.

"I noticed some of the Sam & Fuzzy shirts on the new site look a little different than they did originally. Is that deliberate? Also, will you be bringing back any of the other old designs?" -Rob

A lot of time has passed since I made those designs originally! In some cases, like Can't Dance and Obtuse Reference, I decided to take advantage of TD's multiple-colour printing capabilities to flesh them out a little more. In others, like Ask Me About the Conpsiracy, I had to change the colour scheme entirely because the shirt's original forest green colour isn't available to TD's printers.

If these shirts do well, TD may bring back some of my other classics! (The only ones that are definitely off the table are the designs that had both front and back components... TD only does one-sided printing.)

"Why did you decide to publish your shirt reprints through this new site instead of Topatoco?" -Chris

The reason most of these classic designs were originally discontinued was because they had been around so long that they weren't getting many orders anymore. It became to cumbersome to keep them in stock just to fill a handful of requests, especially when Topatoco needs to keep making space on their shelves for my newer products!

T-Shirt Diplomacy, on the other hand, has access to giant futuristic on-demand printing machines, manufacturing the shirts one at a time to fill orders. So I thought they'd be the perfect way to make my discontinued designs available again for all the folks who missed them, while Topatoco keeps handling all my books and newer shirt designs.

Plus, found the website's cultural exchange mission and deep and convoluted history kind of compelling. It seemed like it'd be a fun thing to be involved in!

Our next comic arrives Monday. See you then!

-Sam Logan

T-Shirt Diplomacy Launches Today

Friends! I was recently invited to participate in T-shirt Diplomacy: a "pan-galactic" cultural exchange that looks suspiciously like an online t-shirt store.

Apparently T-Shirt Diplomacy's existense is mandated by the "1977 T-Shirt Accords", which represented "the belief by all sentient beings that the best way for humanity and alienkind to learn and benefit from one another is via a joint commercial venture selling imprinted casual garmentwear." This was news to me, but it sounded worthwhile!

Because my most recent t-shirtery is already happily housed by my pals at Topatoco, I decided to provide T-shirt Diplomacy with some of my older, out of print designs:

And after that, to be honest, I kind of forgot about it.

Well, T-Shirt Diplomacy has decided to launch their venture today. And, well... have a look at the creator line-up. There's lots of familiar faces like David Malki, Chris Hastings, Alina Pete, and Ryan North. But some of them are... a little weird. And their designs are even weirder.

Consider, for example, the works of Norm Al Hughman:


Or Ambassador Xog:


Mashotron:


Or... actually I'm not even really sure what is happening here:


And that's just the tip of the iceburg. Just check out the full creator listing! I don't entirely know what to make of it. But I suppose it's some kind of honour to have my designs featured among such a... worldly crowd.

Long story short, you can now pick up some classic S&F tees -- and plenty of other confusing stuff -- at T-Shirt Diplomacy! Really.

(I know.)

-Sam Logan