I wanna Chrono-Gaurd t-shirt! An' I wanna Toast t-shirt! An' I wanna a Spec-Ops 27 t-shirt! An' I wanna .......

When do we get to buy the t-shirts? I wanna t-shirt!!!!!!!

Same! I want a SO-17 t-shirt too. And SO-26. And a Pickwick, and a DH-82 and a Miss Havisham and a Jurisfiction anda WoLP one too! Or maybe 3 of each!

from moy :)



"What I need is a strong drink and a peer-group." -Ford Prefect

And I thought I was being greedy .....

Neanderthal one for me please and a Pickwick and something along the lines of Jasper's Tshirt at the book launch... his said 'What would Hamlet do?' (dither!) - mine 'What would Miss Havisham do?' (poss with a picture of a Higham special/a gun?)... that would sort out who'd read the books from those who hadn't!



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Not necessarily, Splat ("sort out who'd read the books from those who hadn't") - some people just have a different sense of the absurd to others and not everyone "gets" the same jokes, especially when they're "in-jokes". It doesn't mean they've studied the books any more or less - the beauty of it is that everyone takes from them what they want; sometimes it's pure escapism and to others it's life-affirming meanings between every line!

I remember once being asked to go and give a presentation at a Bob Dylan convention. Even though I was a guest speaker I nevertheless decided to get into the swing of it and "wear something appropriate to Bob or his songs", as it said in the handbills advertising the event. I therefore cut up a strip of plastic railway line, daubed it with red paint and wore it on my lapel as a badge (a "button", for the benefit of our American readers). During the evening I was quite honestly amazed at how many so-called learned Bob Dylan fans asked me what it referred to - and when I replied "Blood on the Tracks!" some of them still looked puzzled. Basically they took their subject so seriously they had no sense of humour left whatsoever. Sad, but true....

So anyway (he says, getting vaguely back on topic here) I have quite a bit of experience in getting T shirts made up. Basically if you want them to look good you have to have them professionally printed (there's nothing worse than those iron-on transfers!); and to have them professionally printed you need to have a minimum order. The minimum order differs from place to place, but it's usually around 50 or a hundred - though you can of course have different designs and T-shirt colours within that batch.

The cheapest way of doing it is a one-colour design on a one-colour T-shirt, for instance blue on yellow or black on green or red on white (etc).

If there's enough interest in T-shirts (and I personally think it's a great idea!) it'll need someone to coordinate all the requests and prepare some artwork, figure out a minimum order so that everyone gets the shirts they want and nobody gets left with hundreds of shirts that they can't sell, get some quotes for costs, work out sizes (we have quite a few girls on here so, without being sexist, it would make sense to run off plenty of "Small" shirts - whereas if this were a wrestling hells' angels heavy metal fan's forum you'd realistically expect most of the demand to be for XXL shirts - for example!), coordinate the order, get the shirts made up and delivered and paid for (requiring an investment up-front, which I'm sure we could arrange between us if we wanted to - I'd certainly contribute anyway), receive the money from the customers (ie us lot!) (a PayPal account is easiest by the way) and arrange to post them all out.

Two important things will need to be established first though - whether Jasper Fforde and/or his publishers and copyright owners will even allow it to happen, and where any profits are to go. To the person or persons doing all the work? To a charity? To Jasper and/or his publishers? To the owner of the copyright artwork (if, for example, someone designed a logo that was used)? To be shared around everyone involved?

I'm pretty much on the outside still, being a comparative newbie, and have never spoken to or emailed Jasper, so it would sound odd coming from me - I think it's down to one of the "list elders" to run with this if anyone's going to (though I am happy to help!)

The bottom line is that it's a great idea, has bags of potential - but there's a very real danger we could all end up talking about it and not actually doing anything about it. And that would be a real shame!

I e-mailed Jasper asking if he could put Alberto Santo-Dumont as the pioneer of aviation in the Nextian Universe. No reply yet, probably because of the touring he is doing.

I'd want the SO-12 and SO-17 shirts. I have the reflexes for 17, according to that game!



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

I'm sure that all of you dodo enthusiasts know DodoIsland [ecom.mcb.co.mu] for dodo teeshirts, toys etc. Are they good quality/value?

Ptolomy, thanks for the compliment, but no small t-shirts for me
;-)

I could probably squeeze to a medium but Large would be comfy

think I read on different thread somewhere that Ptolemey has thing about petite women which explains his women = small tshirts thing.

with not having net at home i haven't been reading all the threads (i probably have been reading about 20% of the fforum) so i missed that
:-)

but i'd be up to pay a small amount for a t-shirt if we decide to do one (can't afford much, HAS to be under a tenner, ideally about a fiver - yes carla, dream on)

Oh no Holly, you don't mean you actually REMEMBER half the stuff I post on here? *gulp!* Hee!

For what it's worth, I've had a lifelong preference for very tall girls - and a lifelong history of relationships with very petite girls. I guess it's a prime case of the grass always being greener on the other side or something! Ah, well... dream on!

The reason I mentioned that though is simply that the last time I was involved in the production of a batch of T shirts (1000 of them for a rock festival in San Francisco), the range of sizes caused more heated debate than even the colours. I didn't even realise the manufacturers went all the way down to "baby doll" size until someone pointed out to me it was a bit unfair that we'd only printed Medium and XL shirts - I simply hadn't put enough thought into it, that's all. Anyway, a valuable lesson learned and a mistake I'd never want to make again, so I thought I'd pass it along.

(though I still reckon the majority of people will want either black or white XL shirts, from experience...)

Oh, and there's no reason why a T-shirt can't be designed, printed and shipped for £8 / $15 or under....

If this idea does go ahead, I'd be happy to design/prepare the artwork for printing, and talk to the printers about any technical issues. (I'm a graphic designer, amongst other things)

As Ptols said, if we wanted to use (for example) the Goliath Corp logo or SpecOps or anything else that appears on Jasper's site, we'd need his permission (or the publishers, if they hold the copyright on anything we want to use -- stuff that's appeared in the books might belong to either, depending on the terms of Jasper's contract with them).

Also, I'd be happy to identify some potential printers and get quotes from them, once we know what we need. I could pay for the printing up front, provided you all promised faithfully to pay me back!

I probably wouldn't have time to help taking orders, sorting out what gets sent to whom, though . . . (which is probably the most time-consuming bit of the job . . .)

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An alternative would be to use a online custom T-shirt site (there are several, some in the UK, loads in the States).

Don't what the quality is generally like, and prices aren't all that @#$%& on small quantities

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A final alternative is -- well I remember finding a site that will take anyone's logos/text, and then set up an online shop on their web site, where anyone can order a t-shirt (or a mug, or a baseball cap, or any number of things) with the artwork printed on it.

The way it works is the owner of the logo/artwork provides a link from theirs to the printer's web site, and when someone orders something, most of the money goes to the printer but a small amount goes to the logo owner.

So if we organised artwork etc, and Jasper could be persuaded to add such a link to his site, we could then all order whatever we wanted . . .

I can't remember the address of the site offhand, but I can look into it if people thinks it's a good idea.



Jesus saves; Buddha does incremental backup.

I'd also be interested in buying a few t-shirts with Nextian designs. How much do the definitions of sizes vary from country to country (e.g. UK & USA), or even manufacturer to manufacturer? I might be able to squeeze into a L (by what seem to be fairly standard British definitions...), but XL would probably be a better idea.

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Warning! Product may contain Newts!

Hey, that's great! Well said, Guy! I haven't got time to do the packaging and posting either, but I'm more than happy to be involved in any other way that I can, and will gladly contribute financially too if required. Perhaps we need to get a "team" established to run with the idea, then everyone can accept a bit of the responsibility without it all falling onto one person's shoulders? First thing to do is to run it past Jasper though I'd guess - anyone know him well enough to have an offline chat with him to see if it'd be OK for us to proceed?

Er, but... *cough cough*



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

What about those iron on things you can print with an inkjet? Do they work well? If so one could just put the design on the web and leave peplle to get on with it.

But Sarah, we can't buy them there...

lol! problem solved (thanks Sarah) ... Guess I'll have to wait for my Miss Havisham T-shirt though....



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Can't buy them there yet, but they're supposed to be going to be available soon. Shall I e-mail the Panjandrum on behalf of all of us and see if he's got a definite date in mind yet?



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

yes please (though I can only speak for me)... I'd be happy to do anything we can do to help too...



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.