I’m having one of those Donnie Darko moments, if you don’t know what I’m talking about then watch it! If there’s one movie Dark Bunny tees should be reinventing it should be that one, it’d be a great piece of brand alignment. Anyway I love the attitude exuding from this one man brand designed, managed and marketed by freelance illustrator Alex Chenery. Dark Bunny offers a parallel insight into the movie world, and though movie spoof tees are a rapidly growing market, I’ve even reviewed a few in my time at Buy Tees, I’m still convinced that:-
1. There’s plenty more room in the market.
2. Alex definitely has the graphic talent to conquer it if he focuses on building both the collection and brand recognition on the net.
Although his graphic expertise exudes from every pore I do feel the site navigation leaves a lot to desire, but that being a mere technicality I only have praise for Dark Bunny. Artistically these are the best movie tees I have seen in a long old while, I love the distressed effect which really gives the prints a vintage-feel, although I’d pull back from treating every design the same way. The fact is there are those who will love it and those that will hate it, so it’s a gamble, but I admire Alex’s gutsy decision nevertheless.
Asides the beautifully sharp and crisp illustrations there are some nice puns and for once a new label offers a “back story” on each tee, I’ve reviewed sites that don’t even offer a brief description of their t-shirts, bar the usual size, colour and price, so that’s a definite ace in Dark Bunny’s hand. I can appreciate why Alex has used Flash to present the tees and detailed close-ups, but how about a Flickr page to help promote the art, and whilst we’re at it, a Twitter page and blog wouldn’t go amiss. Building a following in a competitive market like this means you have to put yourself out there, the customers will only come if they know where you are.
Check out these tees, there are only five available right now, but I’m sure there will be plenty more to come,hop over to the dark side of movie merchandise with the Dark Bunny!
DB’s Jurassic Park tee is awesome, J.A Hammonds has branched out and opened his own pet store, you can now buy a 12″ high T-Rex for just £199 plus a free box of mice. Beautifully macabre, horrifyingly amusing, great concept, great illustration, in fact it’s so good here are a few more close ups.
Get this tee for £25 (UK) and £30.95 (International) including shipping in sizes S to XL. Currently only available for pre-order, they should be available by November-December 2009.
Loving the composition here, great spoof of BTTF, probably one of the most popular time travel movies ever made, and there slap bang in the middle of this tee is the flux capacitor. I’m a time travel nut, if there was such thing I’d be off in a jot, although as Red Dwarf has pointed out most clearly, you need to travel both time and space to actually achieve anything close to an adventure. Still I managed to catch the original Time Machine movie yet again today, the rather camp version starring Rod Taylor (one of my least favourite actors in history), the machine is the star of that film. I’ve even seen full scale models of it for sale in the USA, unfortunately they don’t work. Still, you’d think the boffins would’ve invented a hover board by now, at the very least. Get DB’s Back to the Future tee for in denim blue for £25 (UK) and £30.95 (International) including
shipping in sizes S to XL.
Asian horror is fierce and not just Japanese, but Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, if you haven’t seen the original of The Ring, go and watch it, yes subtitles are a bore but damn Hollywood screws up everything
of this genre, I don’t need celebrities and cgi, just freaky story lines, spooky filming and great acting, and
this movie has that. This t-shirt is appropriately created to the same high standards, featuring perhaps the
most iconic scene in the film where a dead girl crawls through the TV, I can hear the bones clicking already.
A very nice pun too, if there’s one place you shouldn’t rent a video it’s at Sadako’s. Does anyone still rent
videos anyway? Who knows, I’m sure someone’s managed to transfer it to DVD by now. Here’s a great
idea for a decent sequel if any movie biz types are reading this, how about “Dead Tube”?. You know, the
same plot as Ringu (The Ring) but broadcast on the net, I suppose it would have to be filmed on a grand
scale, but it’d work. Ten thousand people doing a ‘Thriller’ walk across Tokyo, should do nicely. Anyway,
back to reality, get The Ring tee for £25 (UK) and £30.95 (International) including shipping in sizes
S to XL in Vintage Red.
To celebrate the remake (fingers crossed it’s any good) of Nightmare on Elm Street in 2010, Dark Bunny
is offering up this beauty for pre-order on a limited run for November-December. Love the realty idea, the
graphics are superb too, but maybe, just maybe this one could have lived without the crackleture effect.
Still that’s just my personal taste. Beautifully drawn, as you’d expect from Dark Bunny, this tee is available
in vintage red sizes S to XL. Currently only available for pre-order, the Nightmare on Elm St. tee should be available by November-December 2009 on an initial limited print run.
Check out the final tee featuring Tommy DeVito’s comedy club, a spoof on the Scorcese classic
Goodfellas here.
Perhaps the makings of one of the finest movie spoof t-shirt labels on the net, see more details of
all the tees at www.DarkBunnyTees.com
DarkBunnyTees.com
