31 Days of Zombie Infestation: Day 21 - Zombie Evolution T-Shirt

Proving once and for all that zombies are superior life forms, this T-shirt shows the evolution of monkeys into cavemen to homo sapiens to a corpse to the walking dead. Which begs the question... how awesome would it be to see zombie monkeys? And that's all I can think of to say about this shirt.

Evolution of zombies.

Geek Gear: Hungry Birds T-Shirt

Hungry Birds T-Shirt

This item is a double whammy. It manages to parody TWO major properties at the same time! How clever!

Of course, we all know Angry Birds and the Hunger Games at this point. Replace the Mockingjay from the famous Hunger Games pin with an Angry Bird and you've got the "Hungry Birds" T-Shirt!

This one is sure to make some folks do a double take because they're so used to seeing the Hunger Games pin and this shirt's design is similar but with a major tweak.

So what's next - Angry Games? I'm pretty sure that's already called UFC.

It's a Great Big Superhero World! (At Target)

Superhero toys

During a recent trip to Target I noticed, as I'm sure you have, that there is a TON of comic book related merchandise for sale in a store like Target or Walmart. I wanted to find out exactly how much stuff. So here was the rule - to "count" the item in question has to come from a property that STARTED as a comic book. So Batman and Spider-Man count but Casper and Strawberry Shortcake do not. I wanted to count how many items are for sale at a Target that have comic book inspired.

This is much harder to do than you might think. I started out just walking around the store with a notepad and making tally marks but it quickly became overwhelming.

I decided the best thing to do would be to make a gift registry with all of the items. That way, the computer would tally the items up for me.

What I discovered was that items are available in several major categories.

Video games

First, are, of course, toys. There are a wide spectrum of superhero toys available. In fact, they have their own aisle! Spider-Man, Batman, and the Avengers dominated the aisle, of course, because of the movies this summer. But there were plenty of other toys available as well. Marvel Super Hero Squad was well represented. Toys are available for all ages and all levels of sophistication. Lines such as the Bonkazonks, Marvel Miniature, and Marvel Legends diversified the offerings. There were a lot of dress-up clothes as well like superhero masks, Hulk gloves, Iron Man chest light, and Spider-Man web shooters.

Games are another category that was well represented. The Marvel Super Hero Squad TCG is available for sale at Target. There are plenty of board games. But video games was a big category unto itself such as Batman's Arkham Asylum.

 Perhaps the biggest category, however, is apparel. Shirts, pajamas, shoes, hats, underwear... pretty much anything you can wear, it's available with something comic book related on it. I noticed that the superheroes were directed toward boys only. There was no clothing in the little girl or adult woman's section related to comic books. How odd, right? I mean, girls like comics and comic book movies too, don't they? There is plenty of sports team apparel made for females - why not comic book items?

Party Supplies

Party supplies was another big category. Pretty much when you choose a theme for a party you want EVERYTHING to go along with that theme so the numbers quickly add up. Cups, plates, party favors, decorations, not to mention birthday cards.

There were a ton of food items that bore the image of a superhero as well. As you can well imagine, everything from fruit snacks to frozen pizzas were adorned with and shaped like a superhero. Superheroes sell a lot of food.

Food

DVDs were a natural category because superhero movies are so popular this summer.  Not only did Target have a ton of DVDs from popular superhero movies, it also had a bunch of non-superhero movies such as 300, V for Vendetta, and Howard the Duck as well. To up the count even further many of these movies were available in multiple versions - deluxe packages, widescreen vs fullscreen, and BluRays.

The last category I would call "miscellaneous." In this category goes everything that doesn't fit into one of the other categories. Pretty much anything you can stick a superhero's picture on, they've done it. Notebooks, folders, pens, lunchboxes, picture books, bikes, fishing poles, backpacks... the list is nearly endless.

So, how many different comic book inspired items does Target carry? It's hard to give an exact number and it depends on how you would count. Should every different toy in a line of toys count as an item or does the entire toy line count as one item? While an exact number eludes me, here's what is for certain: It is WELL OVER 500 items no matter how you count in difficult categories (if you counted every item individually it would perhaps be as many as 900 or 1,000). That's a LOT of merchandise bearing the likenesses of characters coming from comic books.

Surely there is no doubt that we live in the Comic Book Age. A large portion of our culture is dedicated to these iconic heroes.

movie

What mystifies me is this: The one item that Target doesn't sell? COMIC BOOKS! How is this possible? Target is willing to sell anything with Spider-Man's image except for Spider-Man comics? Surely if Target did carry them they would sell. And while I'm sure comic book shops are glad that they don't, how can the big comic book companies walk away from such huge outlets such as Target and Walmart? Imagine the audiences that could be reached that aren't otherwise! I know for myself as a kid I used to buy all of my comics at a local gas station I could walk to. Were those comics not sold in that gas station I doubt I would have become the avid comic book fan I am today. Try finding comics in a gas station today. You can't do it!

So, come on, Target and Walmart! Start selling comic books! After all, you're certainly willing to profit from superheroes everywhere else in your stores.

One side note: Aside from superheroes it was impossible for me to miss the second place property: Cars 2. Even though this movie was released over a year ago it is still extremely popular as a brand and can be found in almost all of the same categories I listed above for superheroes.

Geek Gear: Watchmen T-Shirts

Bloody Smiley

Elemental Element

What do you see?

I'm always on the prowl for cool T-shirts. Check out these three Watchmen T-Shirts. What makes them cool? Because they're the equivalent of a comic book inside joke. Folks not "in the know" will have no idea what these T-shirts are all about. A red blob on a yellow T-shirt? Random black spots? Two black circles on a blue shirt? But comic book fans everywhere would see you and nod their head in recognition. Nowhere on these shirts does it say "Watchmen!" which makes them under-the-radar geek gear goodness.

Geek Gear: Deadpool-Aid T-Shirt

Oh, Yeah!

What is it about Deadpool that just causes people to want to impose him upon the world? First it was Deadpooh (Winnie the Pooh reimagined as Deadpool) and now it's the Kool-Aid Man.

Sick. Just sick. Cool, but sick.

Geek Gear: Cobra Snowcap

Apparel for an international terrorist group?
What's wrong with that? 

Is your head cold? Well, it wouldn't be if you worked for Cobra because you'd have one of these cool knit caps:

How cool is it that you could wear this thing and, except for your very cool geek friends, nobody would ever notice anything? One complaint - the "R" and the "A" look a little too similar - like it's saying "Cobaa." What's even cooler is, even though they made an Autobot and Deception knit hat THEY DIDN'T MAKE A GIJOE ONE! HA! Take that, Joe! But just putting this thing on would warm the dark recesses of my heart. It would also make me want to peg old man Brown with a snowball in the morning... COBRA!

Halloween Dress Code: Zombie Shirt

Is anything zombie-proof?
Probably not...

Are you a parent that gets dragged around your neighborhood by your children on Halloween night but you don't want get dressed up? Well, you might be able to redeem yourself a little by wearing a cool, Halloween-related shirt like this one:

How cool is that? I love spoof gags and this on the fast food restaurant Wendy's logo is brilliant. Some folks might actually look at your shirt and not even notice! The fact that it says, "Aim for the head" over Wendy's head is awesome 

Geek Gear: DC Hero Aprons

Every geek has a T-shirt with their favorite hero on it, but how cool would it be to wear one of these DC hero aprons the next time you go to grill on the barbecue?

They're a bit pricey at $24.99 but it might just be worth it. They kinda act like a muscle or bikini shirt except they're more full-body. I always like it when there's some innovative, cool geek swag that comes out!

Likewise, if you wear this, you're probably really fat.

Chances are, if you wear this, you're not ripped.