Hot Topic

[Raphael]

On a Live Journal group for a webcomic I read, the author made a comment about stolen art. Seems someone she knows drew a picture, the artwork was blatantly ripped off and used on a t-shirt for a band, and now Hot Topic is selling the shirt. 

Why do I mention this here?

Well, someone else, commenting on the initial story, had this to say:

Hot Topic has knock off merchandise for TMNT and other products as well as parody shirts.

Can anyone who buys regularly from HT confirm whether or not their TMNT merchandise is officially licensed merchandise?  I'd check myself but the nearest Hot Topic is an 8 hour drive away and, for some strange reason, HT is unable to ship TMNT merchandise outside of the US. Nothing else I've seen, just the TMNT stuff...

[TurtleNinja]

Weird that they won't ship TMNT stuff your way, but they can ship others.

I haven't been to any HT in awhile, though both stores that I frequent at the MOA and in St. Cloud are still around. This is honestly the first that I've heard that they might be ripping stuff off and blatantly using them on T-shirts and other merch. When I lived in St. Cloud and bought stuff there more regularly, I was under the impression that it was all licensed, as surprised and delighted as I was to see TMNT shirts I could actually wear as a grown up.

I'd have to dig up the shirts I haven't packed away(heh, I was wearing them out ) and look at the tags, to see if the company that made them is still in existence and if they ever did hold a license to make and sell the shirts. That's the best I can do, since, like you, I have to travel a few hours to get to any HT stores.

I can also ask Earl to look into it. He has much better luck tracking down stuff online than I do.

It does seem a bit odd and suspicious that for all the stuff they ship your way, TMNT is the one thing they won't.

[Raphael]

Agreed on the suspiciousness of their inability to ship TMNT merchandise outside of the US.

Thx, TN...let me know what you find out (no panic, obviously, I'm just curious).

[TurtleNinja]

Found one thing out that's a bit interesting.

Dug up about 5 shirts that I hadn't worn to shreds that I still had here in my dresser. Three had "Ripple Junction" on their tags. Two had nothing, just the name of the company who made the T-shirt itself, not who released/licensed the TMNT image on it.

I dunno who had the shirt license recently given that I bought these AGES ago in the early 00's, but I seem to recall Ripple Junction did have a license back then for TMNT shirts that were being sold at HT and I believe at their online site. I dunno if the license I think they had expired and went to someone else in recent years, especially now with the sale of the franchise over to Nick.

The two shirts in question, one is a black shirt with Shredder on the front, the other is a blue shirt with the classic Toon turtles on the front.

The black shirt's tag just reads; "Gildan activewear heavyweight cotton", plus the usual care instructions.

The blue one reads; "M&O Knits heavyweight" plus care instructions.

The black Shredder one I bought AGES ago, back when I was still in college. I think it WAS at HT, since that's where I get most of my adult-sized TMNT shirts and for awhile, I only had THREE shirts that I got from there at that time, because that was all they had. I was happy to get my hands on them because I only had about 3 tees when I was a kid and had outgrown every one of them, so I was glad to have grownup sizes.

One was the Shredder shirt, another was Mirage-style red-bandana TMNT and a bunch of white clad human Foot, and the last was either just Mirage-style Leo or all Mirage-style TMNT on a blue background, just a simple strip of design on the shirt. All were black, though ONE might have been a dark navy blue.

The bright blue classic Toon one I bought more recently, probably around 2003-2004, where the others were probably 1999-2000.

It does seem to be a bit odd that three of my shirts that I looked at are likely legit if I'm remembering Ripple Junction right, but the other two are questionable, especially the blue Classic Toon one. That was definitely in the Ripple Junction era bought about the same time as the three that had the RJ tags, but this one didn't.

I think I may have a similar Classic Toon shirt in red around somewhere. Different scene, but it was another shirt that just like the blue one, I wore all the time. I don't think that one got packed away. It was still in good condition. Might be lurking around somewhere.

I'll bug Earl when he gets out of the bath if he can find anything further. No definitive proof, just more odd questions considering the tags. Three look good, two just look like they took t-shirts from Wal Mart and put designs on them. Hmm.


Edit: Found the red shirt. Make that 3 for 3 now. Red one was the exact same story as the blue one for tags. So three that should be good, and three that are questionable. I'll still bug Earl at some point, see what he can find, especially if he can't get to sleep tonight.

In the meantime, anyone know the status of Ripple Junction?

[Aignatius]

We've a Hot Topic store at the Del Monte Mall in Monterey, and they have TMNT merchandise on the racks pretty much all the time.
If get this right, the initial post was about bootleg TMNT?
I'm sure Mirage would have had something to say about it by now...

[TurtleNinja]

I would think that the Mirage crew would have said something, too.

Sadly, hubby wasn't able to find anything one way or another about who has the apparel license and whether or not Hot Topic's been bootlegging stuff.

It's odd, but, mebbe- hopefully!- it's just some random, weird incident or something. *shrug*

[Raphael]

It's just so weird that HT won't ship TMNT stuff to Canada.  Wonder why that is?