Re: The Quick Brown Fox
I can't help but feel that all these crappy shiny anime/chibi shirts are just like the blaxploitation movies of the 60's and 70's: they're terrible movies when they are judged as movies, but since they target a specific audience and appeal to them as movies directed specifically for them, they profit and do well. These shirts are exactly like those movies, they pull in a small portion of the voters and yet the voters who are fans of these shirts happen to be diehard fans that will buy anything that has an animal with beady little eyes and pointy legs on it.
The only difference is that the blaxploitation films were often hilariously bad...there's nothing hilarious with the types of shirts that keep fogging. I wish there were a coinable phrase like "blaxploitation" for this, but I can't seem to think of one...I'll give props to whoever can.
And don't even try me with your "just because you don't like it doesn't make it a bad shirt!!! (with an assumed "desu kawaii!!1!1!" or whatever, of course) because this shirt is neither original nor particularly well-drawn. For God's sake, it's practically a doodle! So what makes a shirt good?
1. A clever, original design
2. A design that works well on a shirt
3. Good artwork
Realistically, not all shirts that win derbies can be expected to fulfill all 3 requirements each time (the exceptional ones will, but these are not to be expected at each derby) and so I'm going to say that so long as a shirt fulfills two out of the three then it can be considered a "good shirt."
Now lets judge this shirt:
1. Nope, this has been done before on shirts. Just look at the threadless shirts (their fox is actually brown, too).
2. This happens to be more subjective than the other categories. I'd say this does NOT work well on a shirt but that's largely a matter of opinion and so you can count this one if you really wish.
3. Been over this earlier in this post, it's practically a doodle. Simple, solid colors with no shading and no attempt to have any sort of anatomical correctness. "But that's what the art style is! You can't judge it based on that! Pietà isn't anatomically correct and it's still a work of art (doubt I'd get an example like this but may as well be prepared for ALL counter-arguments, no matter how unlikely)!" Ok fine, it's chibi or whatever. But Pietà and other artworks like much of Picasso's work are not anatomically correct because they inspire greater affectation this way and still required skill to create the artwork in a way that creates that affectation. They were ORIGINAL, their own style; this work is following a done to death art style that is not original and doesn't require skill to "create" it just follows an established style. It's essentially like a caricature artist on the steet: they can draw well but they just follow a formula, they don't "create". So based on that, I can't give this shirt the point for artwork.
So 1/3 max, and that's already a stretch. Therefore, this shirt is NOT good thus should NOT be in the fog, possibly as the front runner.
