June 1, 2012

Raiments of Crom; or, Hear the Lamentations of the Haberdasher

This


is the t-shirt I own which earns the second-most number of comments.

(This

earns the most, by far. My girlfriend loaned it to me with the fatal directive "You can't have it!" It is mine.)

This


has never once elicited a comment, which is a shame because it's BAD ASS. It's a detail of this


which is the amazing cover to one of the heaviest albums I own (when the grim day comes that FB changes me over to Timeline, that's sure as hell going to be my cover image). As Pitchfork says, "The thick, suffocating, undeniable heaviness is distorted to death and resurrected over and over again." And, as I noted on Facebook, it is everything I want my Lamentations of the Flame Princess campaign to look like.

The top shirt, the shirt of the Barbarian, is something I have mixed feelings about. It's an awesome image by Renato Casaro, clearly inspired by the most awesome fantasy/SF/naked lady illustrator ever, Frank Frazetta.



However, Frazetta's own Conan work is so awesome,



it's kind of a shame to wear a representation of the iconic barbarian/thief/king that features the features of Arnold Schwarzenegger.


(Though to be honest, if I had a shirt with that image, I would totally wear it).

In closing, here is my stab at a Hierarchy of Conan.


Art by Frank Frazetta

Monnos (Conan LP)

Monnos (Conan t-shirt)

My Conan movie poster t-shirt

Groo the Wanderer



Conan the Barbarian (movie)

Conan the Destroyer (movie)



1 comment:

  1. Thank you for posting, Tiger.

    I have a lot to say about this post.

    I like the way a lot is implied but not said. Care to elaborate, though, on the POLITIX of the CONAN T SHIRT, especially w/r/t MASCULINITIES?

    I am a long-time comic fan myself, and comic-book adjacent thanks to my big bro. So I spent no small amount of time in old-school comics stores as a kid, baffled by the EXPENSIVE but dusty Dr. Who muffler folded in a giant Ziplok bag high on a shelf at Larry's Comics (Chicago). Didn't really get Dr. Who (never saw it, still have only seen part of one new-school episode). I knew the scarf meant something, but what?

    Which is my lead-in to Groo.

    WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH GROO? Never read it, never "got it." Now I get that it is a thing, and a parody, and important.

    But still. Maybe it's the GROO-ness of the name "Groo"? Read my mind and tell me?

    More soon.

    ReplyDelete