I still need to write about my crazy Plattsburgh adventure - I’ve been a little too busy today getting all the new photos ready for the site, and putting together new product copy, and testing some stuff out. So, for now, I’ll let the photos by my lovely new friend Erin O’Keefe give you a taste of the good times to be had when you’re up in Plattsburgh and get to hang out with great people and awesome musicians like my dudes Hello Control and Secret Secret Dino Club.

Anyway. You may notice some changes in the store. Sandwich Dinosaur colorways now have their own separate pages, which I hope is for the best. Also, I have Best Friends Forever prints by my buddies Two Rabbits for sale, FINALLY. These are 18″ x 24″, like big movie poster size, and they’re awesome. Unfortunately, they are a USA only item, unless someone can convince me that shipping them abroad will work. Bryan has kindly convinced me to ship posters internationally…so, let’s give it a shot. The Best Friends Forever posters will now ship anywhere.

However, there is one change that you may not notice until you hit the checkout page that I am very excited about. It’s not a big deal, but I think I might be the first to do it.

X-Large, XX-Large, and XXX-Large shirts are now $2 LESS than all smaller sizes. Here’s the thing. I feel like the independent t-shirt market REALLY caters to smaller people. A lot of smaller companies don’t print above an X-Large, and many companies charge extra for XX-Large and XXX-Large. This makes sense, because the shirts cost t-shirt makers a buck or two more, but, fuck it. I want everyone to feel welcome at SEIBEI. It is unfortunate that American Apparel doesn’t make any shirts above a XXXL, and doesn’t make some stuff above a XXL or even an XL, but I figure having some of my selection available is better than none.

There’s no special coupon. Just put your XL, XXL, or XXXL shirt in the cart, and it takes care of the rest. There are two exceptions to this rule: Intramural Zombie Hunter shirts, because I don’t make that much money on them as it stands, and Sandwich Dinosaur Combo Packs, because those are already heavily discounted.

I’m not trying to discriminate - I’m just trying to do something fun that no one else has done (I think). I hope you like it!

I’m heading upstate this weekend to see my buddies in Hello Control and do a little photo shoot with our friend Erin O’Keefe, but I just wanted to say something about the sudden passing of Michael Jackson. I’ll keep it brief, promise.

I have been a fan of Michael Jackson all of my life. My friend Yvonne said it nicely and succinctly: “RIP, King of Pop. Your detractors & naysayers didn’t see that you were a fragile genius damaged by a torrential childhood. I’ll miss you!”

That said, brace yourself for the wave of shitty “RIP Michael Jackson” shirts that will be assaulting you over the internet. Do you want to show your love for one of the greatest performers of all time by giving some opportunistic asshole your money? Certainly there will be some well done, subtle Michael Jackson tributes, but within hours of the news the shitty designs have already begun to come in.

Several friends have told me that it’s too bad the Thriller Was A Documentary shirt of mine was discontinued. I always have the option to bring that shirt back someday, but it’s certainly not going to be any time soon. If you want to pay tribute to Michael Jackson, remember the good music he left us. Don’t reward someone who fired up Photoshop the instant they heard that he’d been rushed to the hospital, whose eyes flashed with dollar signs when they heard he’d passed. Certainly this is a generalization, and I’m sure even some of the shitty designs were meant to be heartfelt, but as consumers we can’t reward assholes or poor design just because we’re distraught.

But, that’s just me, and there are lots of tee shirts I don’t like, and I sometimes assume the worst in people.

New shirts are up! Apologies for the crappy photos. I won’t be able to work with a photographer for another week or so, and figured it would be best to just put everything up now rather than wait for better photos. Still, looking at my quick and dirty photos alongside professional ones really makes them look even worse. It’s just a temporary measure!

Renegade Brooklyn was a blast, and I was amazed by how many of you came out and picked up some of my shirts, or stopped by to say hi. What a weekend!

I’ll have a full write up coming soon - for the moment, I’ve got to crank out some new designs, catch up on mailing out orders from the past week, and catch up on Zombie Hunter orders.

In short, the fair was awesome and well-attended, and most everyone was too busy to go say hi to anyone else (literally). The fair was huge and there were a lot of people I wanted to go say hi to or chat with but I only had time for a few quick jaunts out for food. Also, I was so fried from selling for two days and doing an interview that I forgot a few old crafter friends’ names (and that I’ve been calling Maggie from Loyalty and Blood Melissa for like six months, geez - this was AFTER I called Norah from Sheriff Peanut Melissa. Blurgh.). It was great that everyone was so busy, but it would’ve been nice to catch up with some folks.

Kate and I didn’t end up buying much of anything, either, which is odd for us. I walked away with one Linty Fresh tee and Kate bought me a plate with Lionel Richie on it (for those of you that don’t know…I’m a big Lionel Richie fan.).

Alright, back to work…real blog action coming soon.

I’m packing up and getting ready for Renegade Brooklyn - the one sad note is that I probably won’t have time to make buttons. Sorry people! It probably won’t take me much longer to pack up the necessary shirts, so we’ll see, but I want to get a full night’s sleep before a show, for once. It’s my own fault for not having done it earlier this week…oh well.

This weekend is still going to be a lot of fun, though, and I’ll still have loads of stuff to sell. The infamous SEIBEI BARGAIN BINS are back! I’ll have bins chock full of forgotten and discontinued designs - one for ladies’ stuff, one for unisex stuff, and even some kids’ stuff.

Of course, there will be four new shirts, plenty of old favorites, TOTE BAGS (!!!) and even some prints (if I can fit them in the car, ha.).

And I finally picked a name for one of the new shirts, thanks to all of you! There were loads of good entries that were hard to turn down, but my buddy Derek Deal took it home with MINIBOSS. There were some other real stunners that I was kicking around, but MINIBOSS just seems to fit pretty well. Thanks dude! I’ll be hitting up some runners up soon, once I decide who they are.

Alright, back to packing. Hope to see you in Brooklyn this weekend!

In collaboration with Tee Junction and as part of the build up to International T-Shirt Day, I’m sponsoring a one day contest to help me name a new shirt.

Name this shirt! It’s based off of that Post It mosaic I did, which was based on the Junior Birdman character. It was tentatively titled 8 BIT, but that name is too boring.

CONTEST RUNS ALL DAY TODAY. ALL ENTRIES MUST BE ON THE BLOG! This will make things easier for me, and if two people come up with the same winning name, whoever has it on the blog first will win a free shirt.

Whichever name I pick wins a free shirt (it can even be one from this weekend’s releases!), and whichever name makes me laugh the hardest will win a shirt. If someone picks a name that I deem appropriate and is the funniest one out there, it wins two shirts. Sound good? Then let’s do it!

(PLEASE NOTE: Comments are moderated on my blog, so if you’ve never commented here before, I’ll have to moderate your comment for it to appear and for you to be able to comment freely.)

Hey guys! I’ve been hard at work on the latest batch of releases and gearing up for RENEGADE CRAFT BROOKLYN next weekend.

I am prepping some more designs for a July release (ideally premiering at Renegade LA and SF), but as for what will be premiering at Renegade Brooklyn, I’ve got:

- a new Sandwich Dinosaur colorway, on an organic color, even!
- a new Superpredators colorway
- a new design based off of that Post It mosaic I did (slightly different colors)
- a new design based off of a gem sweater Kate made for me over a year ago

Also, I’ll be selling the Best Friends Forever prints. All of this will be going online not long after the show - I think I might be driving up to Plattsburgh, NY to hang with my boys in HELLO CONTROL (and maybe our homies in Museums?) and maybe do a photoshoot for the new gear.

Some people have suggested I have separate product photos for men’s and ladies’ stuff, just to show how the prints look on different sizes, so I might go ahead and do that once we take the new photos.

Finally, Moust from T-Shirt Magazine was kind enough to interview me. You can read all of it here. I’d like to think that I always share something new in an interview, even when I am asked the same questions - maybe eventually I’ll run out of new things to say about myself, but for now it’s pretty easy.

In order to make room for new releases and to clean out my office, I’ve marked down a number of styles to $16, and when they’re gone, THEY’RE GONE. Whatever hasn’t sold by June 2nd is leaving the site REGARDLESS.

Some of them will be returning with new colorways (particularly Superpredators and Junior Birdman), and you may see some of these characters again in the future, but these particular shirts are saying GOODBYE:

Stay Strong
La Mutant Rouge
“…THE AMULET!!!”
Junior Birdman
“…Oh Crap, Run Away!” by Hellen Jo
Superpredators - Mint
Superpredators - Pink
SEIBEI Junior High - by Derek M. Ballard
Thriller Was A Documentary
Who Wants To Live Forever?
FIERCE
Strange Invaders
Vampire Career Fair

Furthermore, I’ll soon be getting rid of the Mint/Yellow colorway of the Sandwich Dinosaur, and the Omnivorous hoodies, which have been marked down to $28 and are running out FAST.

This is all in preparation for what is looking like six new releases - some of these will be new colorways, some of them will be new designs - dropping in early June, to be tentatively premiered at Renegade Brooklyn on June 6th.

UNIQUE LA posted a pretty rad photo set on their Flickr, so I thought I’d use them to highlight some of the people from the show.

This picture is so good it deserves its own post. Here’s Bob Motown of Two Rabbits. You should be looking at their work instead of mine; it’s better. PS - nice shirt, dickhead! <3

Here’s the other half of Two Rabbits, Mike Thacker. NICE PRINTS, JERKFACE!

It’s Sonja, the amazing force behind UNIQUE LA, and Rob McElhenney and Kaitlin Olson, who are from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, which Kate and I are huge fans of. They didn’t stop by the SEIBEI booth, but I dunno if they even saw it. Oh well!

Colin was a nice guy, and I like the concept behind his company, but homeboy would give you a business card every time you turned around. Also, he tried to interview me while I was tearing my booth down. If he ever posts it, please don’t think I’m always that irritated and incoherent.

DIM MAK were nice guys, and of course I sweat the record label and they have some sweet shirts too. Turns out they like SEIBEI too, which is awesome.

I really like this picture. I don’t look fat, there’s my Post It mosaic in the background, and I’m talking with Amir from Beautiful/Decay and my buddy Tom (the owner of the flannel arm in the foreground). Also, people are buying things in the background.

This picture is pretty good, too.

Alright, there are actual BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS coming later today, so I’d better get back to work getting those ready.

So, this weekend Kate and I will be selling at the BUST Craftacular in NYC. I’m stoked for this show. NYC shows are always a blast, BUST shows are well-attended, and it has been AGES since Kate and I have sold together (I think maybe about a year and a half?).

In preparation for the summer show season, I have been watching Pitchmen as much as possible.

Now, it’s time for some breakfast and then it’s off to make a LONG OVERDUE, MASSIVE BATCH OF ZOMBIE HUNTER SHIRTS. It’s a long story.