I was folding shirts yesterday after i had closed the store and when i was putting the Tuxdog shirts back, i was thinking to myself, "What was i thinking in ordering this shirt?" I decided to try on the small sized shirt and it was a perfect fit for me. But yeah, I'm a skinny guy. And i must say, it looked pretty cool so my thoughts immediately shifted from "what the hell was i thinking" to "how come nobody is buying this shirt?"
But yeah, in case you were wondering, what is the Tux dog? Although the official tuxdog site (www.tuxdog.org) is offline you can get some more information thanks to the crucial web archive site . First of all, what appeals to me the most about the tuxdog is the fact that it is an open source image. "It was created by one of Paper Rad (Ben Jones I suppose, not that it matters) as a ten-year-old. It's now been declared as open-source, meaning that the character and its likeness is free for anyone to use, thus encouraging the development of a bright and wonderful Tux Dog-filled world. If one of Paper Rad hadn't created this character, then someone else would have done; it can be seen as a deeply profound expression of the cultural subconcious, jacked straight into the page from the main vein." So now, everday can take this form and make stencils, buttons, shirts and what not
here's tux dog by Sammy Harkham:
And one by Kevin Huizinga
I assume these doodles were made when the Kramer's Ergot crew was touring to promote that fifth issue in which Tux dog was featured in the Paper Rad contribution
In any case, as said Tux Dog was a cartoon thought up by one of Paper Rad's members when he was 10 years old. Though mildly unbelievable, his father, was an avid fan of Max Beckmann and his love of Beckmann's self portrait mixed with the child's own artistic influences at the time, Bill the Cat and Garfield led to the form, Tux Dog.
As the young artist's lame attempts at self promotion began to take form a host of Tux Dog chalk board drawings at school, and white board/dry erase drawings began to sprout up.
And that's about it, other than a failed tux dog iron-on made in 7th grade art class, Tux's reign as the best character ever was cut very short. Some say the introduction of the Simpsons overshadowed Tux's importance(to the artist, not to society), however, later in life, with the Simpsons in syndication Tux began to make a come back(in the artist's mind).
Tux Dog's comeback is outstanding. Not only can you find him on Paper Rad's website, his presence is spilling over to other Paper Rad projects and stuff. The logical conclusion after Tux's long history was obviously to make him open source.
The following is an essay written by the sister of the Tux Dog inventor.
"Tux Dog was instantaneously a household classic. Thinking back, my first memories of Tux Dog were as a worn stuffed animal propped up on the unmade bed of a 6th grader.
Although I realize that he never existed as such.
What I am in actuality remembering is Opus the penguin, who really was a stuffed animal in that household.
Stuffed Opus and Tux are like transparent screens of memory stuck together - inseparable - like plates left too long in the sink/mind.
Tux was conceived in a notebook in Massachusetts, but he was born with the psychic power of a stuffed animal. What that means is that Tux is a three-dimensional hero in two dimensions!"
Tuxdog is ofcourse also on facebook! Join the group, I just did and you know what, I think I'll wear that shirt tomorrow.
