Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I won't talk about by who, that doesn't matter, but I got accused earlier today of stealing the HOLY shirt design — which is totally lame of course and utterly untrue.

I sent in an idea like your Holy shirt to Ryan on friday oct 3rd. It was this ( Also for the above one you could just do a pic of Jesus (cartoon style kinda like an old school tattoo) Have his hands have barbells thru them as well as his feet, a few facial piercings, some tattoos, and maybe some brandings. The bottum of the shirt would say IAM Holey, or IAM Modified. ) He sent me an email back saying he filed them away. I still have these emails. It just kinda seems like its a rip off of my idea.

First of all, I never saw those particular ones — Ryan and I are not in fact the same person. If we were, I (or him) would have a world of explaining to do to Corrie and Rachel! Now, that's not to say I haven't been sent a dozen variations on these general ideas from a dozen different people over the years…

Second, the idea of doing a crucifixion piercing is old news. I've documented it on BME, and it's existed in sideshow for at least a hundred years.

Third, the idea of using a Jesus/piercing joke is old news. Shirts based on the idea have been floating around — often from church groups — for years. Fourth, the notion of using the word “HOLY” or “HOLEY” in relation to piercing is old news and has been done on shirts before (including by BME).

Fifth, what this person just described is pretty much totally different from the shirt I designed except in the vaguest possible sense… Mine isn't an “old school cartoon”, it uses “HOLY” not “IAM Holey or IAM Modified”, there's no direct Jesus reference (I'd thought of it as an extreme piercing reference — the religious aspect wasn't used until I used it as a banner to ask people about Christianity and mods a week later), and it's not even a full body shot including many mods as proposed. If my idea is a “rip off” of this, then so is probably every other piercing shirt in the world.

I just thought it took some nerve to accuse me of stealing this. It's kind of like these patent companies that watch tech trends, and try and find ideas that aren't yet patented (but are in use by others). They then patent them in some vague and meaningless sense, and then try and make money by suing people.

Eolas?