JonGalt wrote:snip
To begin, I didn't accuse you, or anyone in particular, of being part of Ramy's Army of Devoted Fans. I just said they exist.
What I meant to say, if it was unclear, was that Ramy is not drastically off theme here; but I feel he is a talented enough artist that he could have easily made something more on-theme if he had so chosen. Instead, he went for the "cheap pop" as Mick Foley used to call it.
The reason it's off theme is because the imagery doesn't evoke the sense of a nightmare. It evokes a sense of "Aww, look at cute little death!" Of course, this is in my humblest of opinion.
Ramy wastes his talent because, while he clearly has a good hand, he uses it to do the draw the same thing over and over again. If Bob Dylan had never gone electric, we wouldn't have BLONDE ON BLONDE, would we? Sure, the rest is good, but it's a waste of talent not to evolve or vary your craft. So when he has the opportunity to do something different, something more (ahem) nightmarish, does he take that opportunity? No. He goes cute. Again.
I wasn't transmuting my argument. They were two concurrent, related points about why I dislike the shirt. To sum up, "It's a little off theme because it's too cute, and Ramy is always doing things too cute."
Arguments against Ramy are wide, varied, and have been had to greater extent by those with greater strength of argument than I have, and I'll readily admit that. There are far greater and more serious allegations, valid or not I won't debate here, against Ramy. One thing I can assure you is that my distaste for Ramy's shirts are not out of jealousy. Sure, I wish I was raking in the big bucks in t-shirt derbies. I also wish I was paid as much money as Leonardo Dicaprio is to make a movie. But I really like Leo, because he's a great actor who plays a variety of roles and does them well each time. I really don't give a solid gold scaffolding about Ramy's success or lack thereof. What really bothers me is that the same shirts are in the fog all the time, and there's not much variety on a week to week basis. So, I'll say again, accusing your opponent of being jealous is a pretty weak sauce argument.
