...and to all a cheap t-shirt

happy quasi-religious festivities, world! we're entering a new year filled with a lot of uncertainty. the economy is in the toilet and the world continues to be even more unpredictable and unstable than ever.

but despite everything, there's a lot more hope around these days. people are trying to shed the bitterness and cynicism of the first decade of this century, and to think of ways we can all work together to get through these tough times. it's not about "me" anymore, people. if we're going to survive, it has to start being about "us."

this was a tough year for me. i lost 2 people who were close to me and went through a lot of physical & financial torment. this was the year that i really made a big push to try and get zbq back on the map- i printed tons of t-shirts, gave the site a dramatic overhaul, invested in some advertising and generally tried to pimp it out as much as i could. but then in october, the financial system took a nose-dive, and it suddenly became ten times harder to separate anyone from their money for anything, let alone t-shirts. i find myself facing 2009 with an apartment full of shirts and an empty bank account.

and that's where you all come in. i need to move some of these shirts, and i'm hoping that this week you can help me, and get some dirt cheap clothing in the process. and so until january 1st, every single shirt on this site has been marked down to at least $12, and many shirts have been knocked down as low as $8. what's more, shipping is now free if you order 3 shirts or more. this sale will continue until midnight pacific time, january 1st. even the zip-ups and trackjackets (view here) have been reduced to only $28 each- a steal!

there have been a lot of frustrations this year, trying to get this thing rolling again. i've come to accept that the past is the past and maybe i'll never make a living off of this one enterprise again. and i'm ok with that. it certainly doesn't mean i'm going to stop. i already tried that, remember? i could no more stop printing t-shirts than i could breathing. and i've got a lot of big things up my sleeve for the ol' q- lots of new designs, clothes, hopefully a physical store at some point. but i'm not going to try and make this the be-all and end-all of my existence any longer. i've got to diversify if i'm going to survive. in a way, it's better that way- with less pressure to sell a zillion tees just to pay the bills, maybe i can just do it because i enjoy doing it. of course, that's how it's always been- the stress wouldn't be worth it if i didn't get such a kick out of the whole thing. but doing it 24/7 makes me mental. maybe there is some wisdom to the old adage that if you love something, don't make it your profession- make it your hobby.

my sincere wish for everyone reading this blog, or for anyone else out there for that matter, is that you find your true path in this life, the reason you were put on this earth. that's all any of us are looking for. have a great new year.




p.s. just like to thank a few blogs for recent zbq posts :t-shirts around the internet, iloveyourtshirt.com and color overload. peace n' luv.

track jackets and zip-ups and rock banners, oh my

when i say i`m going to do something, i usually wind up doing it. sometimes it takes me a while though. people have been telling me to print more track jackets and zip-up hoodies for years now, and i always say the same thing: "yeah, i`m going to do that soon. real soon."
well, soon is now kids, and i hope that it's also permanent. i made up a few zips and tracks last week, and i think they look pretty good.









the track jackets, of course, are made by our good friends at american apparel, while the rugged zips are alstyle, who make excellent hoodies (double layered hood, super thick fleece, metal grommets for the hood string). i am hoping to print more in the near future, but stock is limited and what is up now will be all that's available before our christmas shipping deadline on december 15th.

i'm also happy to announce that the first batch of zbq rock banners has been created and posted! these banners are hand screened on 100% cloth and feature robin antiga's iconic 1984. the banners are hemmed along the edges to prevent fraying and the like. anyway it was a lot of fun making these, i'm really getting into bigger and bigger prints so i hope to do more intricate banners in the future. but for now i hope you like these.....







so yeah, we did a contest a couple of weeks ago, and actually got quite a few entries. alex chittock, morgan gibson and christopher wilson each picked up a free tee of their choice just for taking a few moments to drop me a line. and so how about another one? this is for anyone who's followed this site for more than 4 years, or just wants to take a wild guess. anyway, back in the dark ages we used to print all of our shirts using heat transfers. in 2003 we started selling screen printed shirts and in 2004 switched over completely, dropping the transfers. but when we did we kept 4 of the old designs. the first 2 people to name at least 1 of these will get themselves a free shirt. if you can name 3, you can have 2 shirts. and naming all 4 will get you 3 freakin' free shirts. i'll even give you a hint: one of the designs has quite a few different color variations, and is currently available in stock. send your answer to zero@zeroboutique.com and you could be on your way to free shirt xanadu. for fairness i'll ask that anyone who's won a contest with us for at least the last 6 months kindly abstain from entering (unless you're just trying to get brownie points).

more new LOVECATS art and pinup sets coming very soon.....as mentioned, CHRISTMAS SHIPPING DEADLINE IS DECEMBER 15TH....here in canada, sales of prorogies have skyrocketed......undies are still on the way but will definitely be after the new year.......

***wipes sweaty brow and heaves a sigh of relief**

ok, so about 14 hours later i finally figured out the problem. if you have any familiarity with php, you'll probably empathize with me: it came down to forgetting one extra "equal" sign. for want of an equal sign did my kingdom almost fall!!!
so yeah, we're back up, the store works and if you're smart you'll check out the 11998844 track jackets and zip-ups before i even get a chance to make an official post about them later this afternoon....
there is a gawd and s/he is indeed merciful! praise allah jeebus. talk to you soon.

technical ecstasy

so i'm working away on my site today, and everything's going hunky-dory, when suddenly things just start going wrong with my database. the store, at the moment, doesn't appear to be working. there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it- i didn't change anything, but for some reason it's having a hard time making one particular connection to the database. for a while it worked again tonight, and now it appears to have decided not to co-operate any longer. so i'm hoping maybe my host is just tinkering with the SQL a bit and things will settle back down to normal tomorrow. but i'm kind of worried because this site still runs on PHP4 and i know my host is trying to move everything to 5. anyway, if anyone out there knows anything about this stuff and they want a free t-shirt for helping me, you're welcome to try: write me at snuzbq@gmail.com.
in other, better and cooler news, i have at long last posted the new zbq rock banners, and they're shmokin'. i also printed a bunch of nifty 11998844 track jackets and zip-up hoodies, and i just posted them today. for some strange stupid reason, the shopping cart links still appear to work on that page- i don't understand it at all. but if you fancy one of those, it should work. (update- only the track jackets seem to work now. for no apparent reason)

hope to have this whole mess straightened away by tomorrow at the latest. sorry for any incon.

into the sea, you and me

2 new LOVECATS sets posted today: the loverly miss krystle from los angeles, california, and another short set from our montreal friend miss holly. enjoie, svp.

 

interesting tidbit about krystle: she just scored herself some free zbq shirts. how did she do it? all she had to do was to send us some beautiful pictures and promise to take more with the shirts we send her. if she does, and we have no doubt that she will, we'll send her more free stuff. sounds like fun, dunnit? if you think you might like to model for us and get some cool zb duds in the process, head to the LOVECATS join page. at this time we're mostly looking for ladies, though dudes are welcome to try.

hey, even if you don't want to be a part of the CATS, if you have a zbq shirt already you can get $3 off your next purchase for every picture you send us of yourself wearing your shirt that we use on this site. you can e-mail pics to us at snuzbq@gmail.com or use the upload form on the join page. for some dumb reason the upload form currently only works in firefox, safari & chrome (oh well).

LOVECATS is about more than just cheesecake though- there is a small but cool art channel which i hope to be growing quite quickly over the next little while. for starters, i'll be trying to archive all of the past and present zbq artists' work, so you'll be able to see it all in one place. i'm actively seeking visual artists of any medium who want to display their work. if you think you might be interested head to the join page.

thassall fer today, shweetums. contest winners will be announced and a new contest posted by the weekend. we're days away from rock banners, track jackets and zip-ups (in very limited supply). keep 'em peeled..............

2 new shirts and a bottle o' rye

howdy and happy thursday evening to you. as promised, i have posted 2 new prints today: wired blind and motherhood (white). well, newish anyway. motherhood (white) is another variation on motherhood, and wired blind is a variation on jade starr, a la neon yellow.
  



 
 

 
 

actually the title for wired blind came from a mister eliza supzsia, way back in the spring when i got off my lazy ass long enough to actually have a contest on this site (a sad situation i hope to remedy post haste- see below). i was trying to come up for a name for what is now called jade starr, so i held a contest. what if you held a contest and nobody came? well that's exactly what happened. but you know who did come to the party? elias. only elias. and elias was kind and generous enough to provide us with not 1, not 2, but 5 name suggestions: wired blind, deadly glow, silhouette, bright box and comfort inn. unfortunately by this point the deadline had passed so i had settled on jade starr, and damned if i was going to spend 15 minutes going into the database to change the name. but i kept elias's ideas, and since i decided to use one of them for this new variation of jade, in the spirit of the original contest i have offered him a free shirt. you just better hope he doesn't choose one of these wired blind shirts: there are only a handful, and since i just washed out several of the screens from that print it's unlikely to be printed again for a very long time (ditto for jade btw).

and in the spirit of the last contest, i think maybe it's time for a new one! so let's see...how about a little treasure hunt? hmmmm....... ok, i want you to find 3 designs in the store that only have one color and one style left. i think there are at least 4 or 5, so it shouldn't be that hard. the first 3 people to e-mail me a list of these 3 shirt designs will win a shirt of their choice, as long as it's in stock. remember- people don't usually bother taking the time to enter these things, so your chances are probably better than you think. although i may have just skewed that a little....

the first batch of zbq rock banners are finished and will be going up on the site within a week or less! and yes undies are still coming, but can't say for sure whether they'll be in time for xmush......2 new LOVECATS sets should be going live sometime within the next few days as well.....watch for in stock 11998844 track jackets within 2 weeks or less, in fairly limited numbers.....shirt designs on the backburner at the moment include something from our old friend thesis, halifax legend deza, a few undead flapper girls, alien centerfolds, washed up wrestlers and more giant oversized versions of some of our older classics. in short, 09 is lookin' busy, son. hop on board.

shake ya groove thing yeah yeah (show em how you do it now)

well that only took forever. a little while ago i decided to print about 600 shirts for the site, spruce the place up a bit with some minor updates & new features and eye candy. i figured i'd have it all wrapped up in 2, maybe 3 weeks. only thing is, it took me 2 freakin' months. but print those shirts i did, and i done posted 'em on my here web page for all y'all to freak on.

so let's get to it! first of all, i'm always the most jazzed about new prints, so i'm really happy to be posting a total of 4 completely new designs this week. first up, an update wouldn't be an update without a new robin antiga print: le punk.







i also brought back some more antiga mayhem with lots of new stock in 1984 and 11998844, plus a new variation called 11998844 brown.
     

next we have another re-visitation from an old zbq alumnus-jason nelson returns with the charming miss mind machine mary (and the mandatory mind machine mary inverse, bien sur):










i've also re-printed a batch of the first image of jason's we printed back in 2005: rEVELATIO (and rEVELATIO inverse, just because).

   

slawek kosolka has been a plumb first base runner and looks set to become a full-on heavy hitter this season with his third zbq print: 666.









and just because we love him so much, and because he is canadian, but mostly because we love him, i was very happy to reprint 3 more batches of slawek's particular brand of ocular discourse: deadphones, carbot and carbotorange.

    

but i didn't let the artists have all the fun. i managed to find time to cook up a new zbq in-house 6 color design: lucha sportivo.







and while we're on the subject of zb in-house designs and collabs, i also squeezed in some new prints from some old favorites (and variations thereof): vampire in paris, hawaii 84, hawaii 2084, undebs, war is hell (grey), goldie silver, jade starr, bikini landscape (grey), che grovera, our man in paris, the fall of kate, true confessions, white wasp and blood. cheez!

       
         
         

oh, and did i mention i also printed a bunch of guys' and girls' killbots (red & grey) tees? because, like, i did.keeley is the bomb guy. not girl. because that would mean he was not a guy. check out keeley's site at bloo empire.

so there you go. all told, 29 prints topped up, with 2 more coming later this week. hope you enjoy! guys' tees are $16 each, ladies' are $18, everything ships air within 24 hours. and up until christmas, we're having a "for anyone who's paying attention" sale. if you're still paying attention at this point, i'll let you in on a little secret: (pssst)....up until the end of the year, all shirts are buy 3 & get one free (ssshhhh)....all you need to do is to add the first 3 shirts to your shopping cart and then enter your choice for your free shirt in the "message to seller" section of the cart before checking out. i'm no good at math, but i do know that adds up to some pretty cheap nifty t-shirts for your holiday cheer-speadin' and such. it's beautiful baby.

and speaking of beautiful, do you recall me mentioning something about bringing thezerokidz back? you do? because that's just not going to happen. i have, however, cooked up a whole new page called LOVECATS which features most of the old zerokidz picture sets, as well as an art section with a starter selection of some of the artists we've worked with over the years.

   

i'll have more on LOVECATS in a few days. right now, poppa needs his beauty rest. sweet dreams.