Shirt Stains: Random Ugliness Edition
Odds and ends of unending oddity.
Our esteemed 365 Days of Horror, who normally guides us through these galleries of unfathomably unfortunate design, has had to retire for a while to give his eyes a rest. Constantly assaulted by either the shrillest of colours or the dreariest of camouflage, they have grown weary. Too deep has he waded into the bottomless ocean of shitty merch; so low has his bar sunk that what makes us gasp in terror is everyday and mundane to him. He needs a reset. He needs a fresh pair of eyes to confirm that yes, these are truly some stainy ass stains (hyphenate to your liking) that he dragged up from the depths. The horror has already begun with the header image, so there’s no turning back now.
Marduk
Alright, first things first: you don’t print on the sleeves of a short-sleeved shirt. That’s just bad. That alone earns them two weeks without shopping online for NS memorabilia. Bad Marduk! And that’s even before we get to the meat of this thing. While the old logo and the ‘memento mori‘ style skull and skeletons hark back to a simpler time when the band seemed interested in other things than WW2, the lower we go, the worse it gets. In a weird turn of events, we see Lassie jumping gaily in front of a pentagram to snatch one of three crosses from the air. The fact that it’s actually a wolf doesn’t help, as we all know wolves are lame af even when not factoring in their frequent association with shitlord bands. Still further below, the letters “SS” flanking something pretty close to a Totenkopf. Really subtle there, guys. Oh, but of course “SS” means “Serpent Sermon”, the song after which the shirt is named. Well, actually it’s named “SRPNT SRMN”, cause that’s what it says on the back, cause I mean at this point, who gives a fuck.
Feel free to come up with a joke involving semen to lighten the mood a bit.
Ghost
Ghost‘s frontman/mascot Papa Emeritus has apparently gotten the pope to abdicate, and everything about it looks so utterly off that it warrants a little tour to properly take in the carnage.
Not a good sign if the dude dethroning the old, decrepit dude looks equally as old and decrepit. Then again, exactly that seems to be the case when a new pope takes office (Heyoooo!). Why you stoopin, Papa? Just making way for the logo? Or does it have something to do with the fact that your head looks peculiarly photoshopped and this isn’t your body at all because I mean just look at the neck, that shit clearly doesn’t work? Hmm. Something to consider, perhaps.
Yet again evoking the impression that this is most likely stolen art that was badly cobbled together, we witness the (former, I guess) pope go hog wild on the hand kiss, generously mushing everything from nose to chin into the target. One eye’s closed and he seems to be covering the other, leading me to believe that Papa fights dirty and bested him Stooges style. On top of all that, it looks a lot like the kissee has his left hand attached to his right arm, but amidst this clusterfuck, I’ll let that slide.
Admit it: you hope to one day be as happy as this dude. Arms aloft, meth mouth agape, his seemingly limitless and certainly mindless euphoria is infectious, but alas, not enough to save this mess.
I hate to break it to the artist, but the only way those knees would ever look like this is if the man had body pillows for legs or if he was actually two Pillsbury Dough Boys in a pope costume. His holy slippers have seen better days, too, and I think he’s wearing a night gown. This really can’t have been much of a fight; I’d give up my job too if you woke me up in the middle of the night and poked me in the eyes.
Non-Shirt Bonus: Demon Hunter
I was unfamiliar with Demon Hunter before this, and so I spent a while trying to figure out what I was looking at. Did they xerox a dry leaf and print that on a bandana? Only when my eyes made the effort to roll down to the related items on the page did I realize that this is a stupidly mangled version of what is apparently their logo/mascot, which in itself invites examination:
A horned head that is half demon and half… other demon. I think Demon Hunter would like us to know that they hunt many different sorts of demons. Mostly horned ones though. But horned demons in all sizes. But mostly these two.
Anyway, since they have this snazzy, recognizable logo, the logical thing to do is, of course, to swathe it in generic weathering effects and cut off the actually recognizable bit, so that you’re left with a weird stain that looks bland even by Rorschach test standards and bears no apparent connection to the band. Done and done! And to make sure this is bought by as few people as possible and only the ones who are as deranged as this idea, why not market it as the “True Extremist Bandana”. Having heard some of Demon Hunter’s music by now, I’m not sure what sort of extremism their fans would possibly get up to, but it seems like “The Pepper Spray Goes Here, Lady” or “Failed JNCO Store Robbery” would have been more appropriate names.
