Sunday, February 03, 2008

Sonic's Stale Shirts?

With yet another shirt-only update this week to Sonic Gear, it's beginning to raise a question.

Just WHAT are the shirt designers getting at?
Everything new these days is either trying to look 'classic' (only classier) or spamming out endless repetitive Sonic X designs. Both of which only accomplishes one thing...making the shirts ALL look "Same ol' same old". HOW many shirts do you want that have the same stock art Sonic on it that's been around since the early 1990s?

Oh but this one is different, see it has a square behind the art instead of a circle oh!

They're just churning out endless variations on the same recycled art. But who's a worse culprit, the phony oldskool, or Sonic X...?

Sonic X isn't doing so hot in the designs either, because there's
Jumping Punch Sonic
Charging Up Sonic
Sideways Jump Sonic
Standing Sonic

and that's it for the designs. Every time it's Sonic X themed, it's one of those poses...and that's it, despite there being tons of shirts. The plus side is that they're using them quite creatively and really coming up with ideas to spice them up and keep things feeling classy, fresh (ish) and new in most of the cases.

But do you notice something missing here?
What is Sonic about? GAMES maybe? Where are shirts related to the games? The characters IN the games? Where's Knuckles, Tails? They've thrown Shadow around on some stuff, but how about featuring Knuckles or something...throw a curve ball around. Even Rouge the Bat or Espio or something. Everything isn't about Sonic X, but they're treating it like it's the Superbowl and everyone MUST watch it and all shirts must be nothing but a giant ad for it.

The clothing lines of today seem to have lost sight of Sonic GAMES and gone into an obsession with being repetitive or mocking old styles. There's more to Sonic than stock art, and Sonic fans can be fans of more than one character. Isn't it about time that Sonic the Hedgehog clothing covered EVERYthing Sonic?

Next Week:
Likely to be home decor related. This is always an interesting one to do, with obscure Sonic things from the USA and the UK that no one suspects like lamp shades and bed covers.