I have boxes and boxes of old tees from the 80s and 90s, some of which I still wear from time to time. Yes, these include “surf” shirts that were popular in the Valley (I’m not sure if they were popular throughout the rest of the country) when I was a kid, including tees from T&C (my personal favorite), OP, Maui and Sons and Gotcha. I also have a ton of video game (mostly Nintendo-themed) and comic shirts (mostly Batman and X-Men) from the period, as well. Now, the style used to be to wear shirts excessively baggy at the time, so I can’t completely attribute my ability to wear these shirts to the Power of Scrawn, but it’s kind of amazing how well these old shirts have held up. I recently gave a bunch of them to my sister Laura/Lor to make a quilt out of. I’ll report back if anything should come of that.
Also, today’s strip is #333! Which has no significance other than it’s a cool number, so I thought I’d mention it.
First!
congrats on your firsting, Maryz! been quite a while since you’ve claimed the Shades of Firsting, which just happen to be fashionable in any decade:
😎
I was so close to this one. Well good for you and yet another great comic from you JefBot.
nice of you to say, nas, thanks! 🙂
Wow, Realy? My first first this year if Im not mistaken!
Anyway, I dont realy have many old clothes as I tend to wear them out – I go shoping for clothes once every year or so and only buy what I need at the moment. The biggest advantage of this is that all my clothes quickly become extreemly comfortable – and it kinda saves money. I dont get people who go shoping for shoping sake, have to know what im going to buy if I go to shop.
yep, i think this is your first Firsting of 2011, Maryz – competition’s been tough this year!
and i rarely shop for clothes, either, and most of the shopping i do is online if i see a cool tee i like, or need a new polo or dress pants for work. my shirts don’t often get worn-out though, probably cuz i have so many of them, they don’t get a whole lot of wear-and-tear.
Oh…if only I could still fit in my clothes from the 80’s!
But then again..I had little boobers in the 80’s….Rubenesque it is!
I have a bunch of old Betty Boop (Who is my IDOL!) shirts I will be cutting up to make a quilt out of. Hurray Lor for being Crafty and Awesome.
Awesome Comic Exhaulted One!
OH as far as the “news” I had. Well I was supposed to be going to LA sometime in the near future with my Bestie to do a show but that fell through on my end. I was all excited cause I was going to kidnap Jeff for cocktails! Ah well… When Jeff makes it to FL for a convention I will save all my pennies and come dressed as a pirate with all my…ummm…*cough* accessories.
heheh. well, fortunately, my “boobers” haven’t grown much since the ’80s, Pixie, so my body’s still compatible with all that retro-wear. ;D
ooh, show us your Betty Boop quilt when/if you get around to making it. we’ll see if Lor comes through on my quilt. i didn’t give her a lot of A+ shirts for it, since i wanted to see how well it turns out first. if it looks cool, i’ll give her the good stuff!
AWWWW! that would’ve been awesome had you come out to L.A. – we definitely would’ve had cocktails and stuff! looking forward to your pirate outfit at a future con!
Awesome strip. I can totally identify with it. I still have a few items from the 80’s. One is a surf t-shirt (yes, they were popular everywhere). I still wear it. Also a sweatshirt that I can specifically remember wearing my junior year in High School (that would be ’85-’86). And I have a sweater that I still wear that I’m pretty sure is older than that! Some of the oldies are still the best. I might even have my hypercolor t-shirt somewhere, but you won’t catch me wearing that one!
Making a quilt out of your old t’s is a great idea. One of my friends did that. I’d consider it with some of my old college shirts, but I have two quilt tops that have yet to be quilted already!
Thanks for your beautiful gift. It arrived today. Totally victorian goth! Thank you!
*cuddles of doom*
shanna’s rad. 🙂
Yay! I’m so glad you like it. Boy, it sure took a long time to get there!
glad you could relate to the strip, shanna! also happy to hear surf apparel was popular outside of SoCal, and that you still wear some of that stuff. when i was moving, i found one of my hypercolor shirts, and it still kinda worked. i can’t remember if that’s one of the ones i gave to Lor for the quilt or if i boxed it up. hmmm… (but yeah, i can see why you wouldn’t want to wear it, as hypercolor shirts on women are kinda obscene. heheh.)
if Lor gets the quilt done (probably not for several months, i’m sure, as she’s been quite busy recently) i’ll post it on the site.
Strip #333, eh? We are so going to be in big trouble when you double that!
ha! i’ll totally have to commemorate the strip with something evil when we get there, Rod Lane. >:)
It’s true, Jeff! Even here in West Central TX we were wearing OP and Gotcha! I mean there was nowhere to surf unless you drove 9 hrs down to coast but hey THAT’S NOT WHAT FOLLOWING A TREND IS ABOUT! I still miss wearing my jams. But yeah, it’s wierd to see knock of Ocean Pacific tees in stores now. Makes we want to get all old man like and shake my [metaphorical] cane at the kids.
good to know OP and Gotcha! were popular even in West Central TX, Jed!!! that’s awesome. i’ve never actually surfed at the beach that’s been 20-30 minutes from me (santa monica/venice/zuma) since i was born, but i did finally learn to surf in hawaii (waikiki) several years back. and i don’t think i was wearing my ’80s surf wear at the time. go figure. 🙂
I swear I had a t-shirt which literally grew up with me, and I wore it from age 6 to about 15 before my mother cruelly gave it away! I also had a t-shirt which I loved because it was from a children’s group I went to see, so I cut the logo out and sewed it onto another. Crafty, no?
aWww… you should see if you can find a shirt on eBay like the one your mom gave away, Maia! and yes, very crafty transplanting that logo from one shirt to another; i think if i had any sewing skillz, i would’ve done something like that, too. 🙂
When I was a wee little ESQ, just a “esq” if you will…I had a bevy of of t-shirts…but I wore them soooo often that they were literally falling off my body before I had to toss them. I had this “peace” shirt that I adored and my Pearl Jam shirt…omg…I wore it anytime it was clean…I was never a “follow the trend” kind of gal. So I never really had the popular stuff, ya know?
how adorable, thinking of esq-ling. heheh. and while most of my old shirts are still in good shape, a few of them are starting to fall apart, which is why – hopefully – this quilt that Lor’s making will be a cool thing.
The only things that still fit me from the ’80s are my authentic heritage collection of enormous earrings. My favorites are the large blue plastic hearts with beads strung on fishline stretched across the cut out centers.
Those and the sunglasses I wore at night.
We shall not speak of jams.
ha! sounds like you were styling back then, Sarah W! someone needs to bring back those big earrings from the ’80s. heheh. maybe not.
and now i have that Corey Hart I Wear My Sunglasses at Night song in my head. 🙂
The Earworm That Won’t Die. I’d apologize, but misery loves company . . . 😀
Bahahahaha! Bot fits into clothes from 20 years ago. What a dork. 😛
i should wear my dorky ’80s clothes when i do comic conventions, methinks, TCG! speaking of which – i’m gonna be doing the Phoenix Comicon memorial day weekend and hope to see you there! i’ll be posting details soon. 🙂
Careful. I’m a little, you know, crazy. 😛
Well… the maui shirts were in FL and VA when I was a kid in the early 90’s… I hated those shirts when I was a kid and I still do. They remind of the current trend of Ed Hardy’s.
ugh, agreed: i hate the Ed Hardy shirts too, Demonpiggies! i submit that the surf wear stuff was much cooler ‘cuz of the awesome cartoon characters: Thrilla Gorilla, Sharkman, Radman, Rude Dog, the Tiki Guy, and more!
I’ll get those shades one day…. they will be mine… yesssss….
And uh I hope I can’t wear any of my clothes from the 80s. I was born in 84 which puts me at 5 at the oldest. I was a tall but scrawny kid and now I’m a larger 6’4″ tall 27 year old guy…. not happening!
keep trying for those shades, Psy!
and yeah, i can see why you wouldn’t wanna wear your old ’80s clothes… although it’d be funny to try! 😉
I have clothes from the 80’s, too. They mock me from my closet! 🙁
ha! you’ll teach them the price of mocking you someday, Mombot! 😀
It’s okay mombot, my mom does too! She hoards everything, she even has my report cards from elementary school. Is it an asian thing to hold on to everything? My mom just recently threw out an old chair that was as old as me, if not older! I was literally waiting for a devil to pop up saying “damn, it’s cold down there!” ;D
Break out the corduroy OP shorts!
man, i loved my corduroy OP shorts, Stan! now those i sadly don’t fit in anymore. i guess the Power of Scrawn (at least for me) has its limits! 🙁
I too had some of the shirts, and I can still find them around possibly due to living in a fairly famous surfing area.
What is more interesting though is what went along with the whole 80s surf/skateboarding trend, the video games that cam out for it. Great games such as skate or die, best as an arcade game or T&C Surf Design for the NES
i loved those games, David! i had that T&C game for the NES and played the heck out of it. i think my favorite of those types was California Games for the Commodore 64. i seem to remember they re-released it on the Wii via download a while back, but i’m afraid to revisit it for fear it won’t hold up.
Outstanding! I had that same shirt in blue!!! Crazy- everything old is new again…
I can’t wait until I’m new again. Rockin’ strip as always! I love your eyes in the middle frame!
Please tell me that you’re either not into girls or happily married… ’cause I may have you kidnaped by my minion of doom!
*snicker of doom*
Speaking of Eddie, I haven’t seen any sign of him lately.
Meh (of doom).
I hope that what I got didn’t transfer to him.
Don’t look at me like that! With the way the Internet takes over our lives it’s a wonder we don’t transfer illness along with pictures and info!!
He is perfectly fine just lazy to post.
And it is getting close to the end of the school year for most people, so he might be busy with end of the year tests/exams if he’s in school.
i would not be surprised if a computer virus ever turned into a “real” virus, Sonitan! it’s probably how the world will end.
Please, ignore the above comment. I was in a coffee high. Yep, I was.
…
P.S. I should NOT be held responsible if you DO get kidnapped by people who likes yummy things.
*snicker of evil doom*
thanks, Funnyshaffer! yes, those are jefbot’s often-used, “averted gaze” eyes. you can pretty much tell when he’s lying whenever he uses ’em. 🙂
333 you’re only half evil.
I still have shirts that still fit from when I was in elementary school
true – i’m only half evil. apparently, Xinda got the full dose, though. 😉
The Power of Scrawn shines through again, like you i still have a shall we say boyish figure, (not too shabby for my mid thirties,) but i also have an entire, esoteric, evocative, and enviable retro t-shirt collection (praise for alliteration is not required but greatly appreciated). Fat Willie’s, and Slippery Dick’s surf shack T’s circa 1989 still get a smile on people’s faces when i wear them not to mention the Mr Zogs Sex Wax (The Best For Your Stick) T i got in 1991.
A perfect example of how the scrawn can help you achieve socially, by wearing t-shirts everyone else grew out of years ago, not to mention saving a bundle on buying new clothes all the time.
woo-hoo! fist bump for the Power of Scrawn, Deaconvorbis! very true about how those powers can help your social standing, and your wallet! also, your t-shirt collection sounds awesome (and not just because of the alliteration!). i remember when i used to see “Sex Wax” stickers all over people’s lockers and folders at school! nice.
^^^^^^^^
Yeahp, forgot which email addy to use for the gravatar again, d’oh!
That’s why I limit the number of e-mails I have. Do you have any pictures of those tee shirts?
Unfortunately not, my sh*tty 1.3MP phone camera ain’t quite up to that, however a quick google search shows that Fat Willie’s and Mr Zog still sell the same T’s, Slippery Dick seems to have gone under in the meantime. I’ll see if i can borrow a friend’s camera to get a pic of that for you.
Cool. 🙂
always love your penguin-goku avatar, Deacon.
Heh, don’t worry bot. It means you’ll never be drug around by Cel to buy you new clothes.
true dat, Anime fan! cel doesn’t seem to be all that into fashion, anyway. she might have a t-shirt collection of her own!
I don’t think I could fit into any of my old things. At least I don’t think I could considering that I can’t go and find out ever. In fact, one of the only things that I have from the 90’s (and frequently even touch) is my GBA which I’m playing right now. 🙂
there’s gotta be a way you can wear that GBA, Fijiman.
*blinks*
In all honestly… NO idea who or what were those names you were mentioning, Jeff.
Meh. Never was a gal for jeans or shirts. Blame my mom for always dressing me like “alice-in-wonderland”, mary-jane shoes and ponytails,etc.
*absolute proud of how girly and adorable I was (still am!)*
^^
Yes, but now you’re evilly adorable.
Ah back in the day eh? I used to get the surfer T’s in order to piss my parents off. It didn’t take them long to figure out that if they took me on holiday and left my surf T’s behind, i’d only go out at my first opportunity and buy more. Some of the Cornish surf shops from that time used the most offensive names they could get away with, (which wasn’t that offensive at all).
That had to have been the only point in my life when i felt like part of the crowd, urgh can you imagine?
Anyway, after being rather tied up and unable to surf the web recently i’ve only just caught up on the last few months comics and comments. Glad to see you’ve defeated the lerghi. If you are still in some way recovering then my best wishes for a return to full H&H status.
we’re glad you’re back, Deaconvorbis! always great to read your comments.
heheh. i figured there’d be a bunch of you that hadn’t heard of some of those brands, Sonitan. i’m sure the “alice in wonderland” look was way more awesome (and adorable!), anyway. 😀
I love it, bot. I always found it amazing that you have everything you’ve ever worn in your possession STILL! I don’t know if it’s the power of scrawn or if it’s the power of hoard. 😉
Irregardless, this strip is adorable. Love the Maui shirt and how fat The Cornfather keeps getting from strip to strip. ;O)
ha! yeah, probably both powers are in effect here, MC. good observation. heheh.
and yes, the Cornfather’s weight does fluctuate. kinda like Oprah. 😉
sweet lord. I remember you wearing that in High School, jefbot!!! hey, where is my high school musical strip?!?!
i think my wardrobe in HS consisted entirely of surf/skater wear and Batman stuff, cin! remember that party of yours i showed up to with the skater/checkerboard hat on, the “animal” shirt and the acid-washed, pegged jeans? was thinking about turning that into a strip. maybe after the “Musical” one. 😉
Have you performed the experiment, yet, shootzee? I am still eagerly awaiting the results.
In other news, my pet cat, Harvey, might be a [i]very[/i] late generation Savannah Cat. And by late generation, I mean all he’s got is the long legs with the hind ones being long enough to raise his hips a good bit above his shoulders and a few spots on the belly, appearance wise, and has the trademark “greeting hiss” of the breed, as well as the unusually friendly personality. For more details on what the heck I’m talking about, just check my comments on the previous strip.
still “nay” on the experiment, NeoD, but getting closer. ever closer…
and i looked at that wiki link for Savannah Cats. very cool – i’d love to have a pet with a “cheetah tear” marking, though the “greeting hiss” might freak me out a little. 😉
Nothing funny about fitting into clothes you had 20 years ago. I still fit the trucking teeshirts I had 20 years ago. Okay, I say *fit*…in the same way jelly fits a jelly mould…
heheh. hey, it doesn’t matter how well you fit, just that you fit, Gaz!
…Yeah, I was born in the late 80s. So in order to fit into the clothes I wore in the 80s, I’d have to go back to being a toddler. Now the 90s…!
Very nice strip, Jeff! My mom and I were talking about something like this the other day when she was helping me tailor pants…she commented that she wore bellbottoms when she was a teen, and now they’re baaaaack…
Hmmm, flares eh? Would anyone accuse me of fascism if i suggested that every community across the world gather all flares into large piles ready to be cleansed by fire?
Yes. Yes, they would. Unless we’re talking about a different kind of flare.
trying to think of what i wore in the ’90s. t-shirts and jeans, i suppose, as always. 🙂
and y’know, if your mom still has those bellbottoms she could probably get a decent amount of money for them, Tiana – they’re quite expensive at the secondhand stores around here, especially the Melrose shops.
We talked about that maybe ten years ago, when the bellbottoms started coming back and I wanted to wear them. She said she regretted not hanging on to them, so I could wear them. So it goes, I guess.
And I do have one piece of clothing from the 80s that I still fit…a tee-shirt from the Exxon Valdez spill. My dad was one of the cleanup crew, so he got a pink shirt commemorating the event.
Heyyyy the Maui and Sons logo is still popular here particularly board shorts and beach wear so don’t knock it till you try it.
As for fitting into clothes twenty years back… yeah… *whistles the mission impossible theme*
where do you live, jiro? Hawaii? when i was putting this strip together, i noticed that, like you said, Maui and Sons is still around. T&C Surf Designs, too, although both don’t have the character shirts like they used to. couldn’t even find Gotcha! brand anymore, sadly.
For the record, that surf stuff was totally big in Chicagoland. And we had no where to surf, which is probably WHY it was big. That, and it all came in DayGlo colors. And if there was one thing we loved in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it was DayGlo.
yeah, everything’s so dark and drab nowadays, Kate. although i’m not sure i want that “dayglo” look to come back, the ’80s were so much more happy and colorful! (although maybe that’s just because i was a kid back then, and everything was more vibrant. hmm.)
i’m back!!! man, its been a while since i commented after being MIA for weeks 😀 i can totally relate to this strip. when i was a kid my parents sometimes gave me some of their own shirts from their younger days (the 80’s) cuz i grew up faster than the average kids (we were kinda poor back then too). my brothers kept some of their shirts from the early 90’s (super human samurai cyber squad and skeleton warriors to name a few). too bad my parents got rid of them after we moved
hey, Aki! glad you’re back! and happy you can relate to the strip – some of the best stuff you can get are hand-me-downs. my aunt in Hawaii used to send me aloha shirts my cousins outgrew all the time. still love and wear them!
“Big Johnson” was what everyone here was wearing.
heheh. gotta love those “suggestive” brands from back then, Hornet.
pity you didn’t post this on this Friday… #333 = Friday the 13th hoorah!
i know! but i’d be some kind of weird, numerologist, math-savant if i had managed to plan today’s strip to land right on Friday the 13th since the beginning, Bruudwin! although that’d be kind of cool, too. heheh.
just got the word from maryz yesterday, that he misses my comments here. wouldn’t want to disapoint him. anyway.. as for the strip. totally love the t-shirt
thanks, supersonic cucumber! i missed your comments here, too. 🙂
Omg. Are they still in business? Lolz.. U guys wanna see my maui and sons action figure?
hells yeah, Jf#300! show us! (and yeah, Maui and Sons are still in business, but their stuff isn’t as cool as it used to be. no character designs anymore, for one thing.)
yeah you know the same cant be said about myself. I think i was the only one who wore surfer shirts in my elementary school… mainly because they fit. I’m not exactly fashionable lol… grew outta that and into whatever looked good and fit. The one thing that changed is now I don’t wear shorts. Guh how horrid…
no shorts, steve!? how do your legs breathe!!?
and i think that’s the thing with me – i rarely grow out of stuff, physically or mentally. heheh. i suppose that’s why i still love videogames, cartoons, comics and everything else awesome. 🙂
Nothing’s come of that, yet.
Don’t take this the wrong way, jefbot, but how old are you? I thought you were like in your late twenties or something like that. Again, I’m sorry if you took this the wrong way.