The shirt reads TWEEDLE DUM across the chest, then I’M WITH DEE below it, and a small arrow points to the right. That is the whole design. No illustration of a round belly or a propeller beanie, no Carroll quotation, no distressed texture pretending to be a vintage circus poster. Just two lines of text …
The first thing I notice is the string of lights. It runs across the top of the design like a garland tacked over a doorway, and the words hang beneath it: FORCED FAMILY FUN, in red and white lettering, the kind of blocky festive type that could have been lifted from a drugstore greeting card. …
The first thing I notice is the nose. Not the round eyes, not the smile — the nose. On the orange jack-o’-lantern face printed on this shirt, the nose is a heart. A small, symmetrical, unmistakable heart, sitting right where a carved triangle would normally go. The eyes above it are perfect circles. The mouth …
The first thing I notice is the hat. It sits at the top center, a cream-colored pointed witch hat in an engraved style, its curved brim and square buckle drawn with the kind of fine line work you see on old bookplates or the frontispiece of a children’s fairy-tale collection. Below it, in serif capitals, …
The first thing I notice is the arms. Not the pumpkin, not the orange-and-cream lettering curling around the chest like a vintage cereal box — the arms. They’re folded. The ghost in this design, a bedsheet ghost with the classic scalloped hem, stands with its arms crossed over its middle like a stage manager who …