H. P. Lovecraft once wrote, “As the dark, moaning centuries conspire to lay waste to the weighty tomes of all literature; as the ink you, and I, and we lay down begins to moulder and fester like the brackish, miserable blood of long-forgotten nightmares; even as all of our worldly efforts are wiped from the Earth’s memory faster than we can make sense of it even occurring — let jest survive after all: for it is in laughter, and mockery, and satire, that the truth of the world resides.” Okay maybe I just made all that up but we did what he asked anyway.

How’s that project coming? How’s your day shaping up? How many things on your to-do list have you crossed off? How many have you added? How many calls have you made or emails have you sent or meetings have you meetinged or works have you enworkified? If the answer is a negative number (measured in kilopascals per liter of deep, rueful sighing) then we got just the thing for you. It is a bright, colorful reminder that you need to just, for God’s green sake, DO YOUR WORK. Do you need to outfit yourself (or better yet, everyone in your office) with a torso-worn reminder? Or do you just need a big ol’ giant poster to stick above your desk so everyone walking by can silently judge you? Either way we are here to help remind you of your priorities and thereby cause you to succeed at your thing, thus directly and absolutely positively putting money into your pocket. In our (admittedly limited and possibly wholly imaginary) tests, when properly and strategically activated these items pay for themselves nearly instantly.

But is too much work also a danger? Zach Weiner would have you think so, with his new cautionary tale about the human condition. Zach’s eerie, profound (semi-autobiographical?) fable raises junk-scratching questions about the fundamental nature of our quest for “progress.” Are we fated, as a species, to work so hard that we eventually collectively force ourselves (via nuclear holocaust, if necessary) to take a much-needed billion-year break? Is it writ in our genetic code that we if nothing stops us, we will eventually work ourselves to the bone, and then our bones will work themselves to their atoms, and then the atoms will work themselves down to the quarks, and then the quarks will cry themselves to sleep every night? Is there any saving the human race?

If we are workaholics by nature, perhaps the solution (for our own safety) is simply to make our work frivolous. Kris Straub’s got the species’ back with the new Periodic Table of Science Fiction. Put this up and you won’t need five hundred DO YOUR WORK prints littering your dang place. You will be drawn to its extreme level of scientific accuracy and your brain will be safely diverted from any extinction-level breakthroughs, all its sinister crannies filling with thoughts like “Oh yeah I remember Space 1999!”

Hey now CLICK ON IT (there’s a link to an enlarged view over on the product page)

The world is a complex and nuanced place. People are different, everyone’s special, blah blah blah, nobody gets to do genocide anymore because of “morals.” But is all this Olympic-sized caveat-construction helping humankind be happier? We at TopatoCo posit that your life will become much easier the instant you realize that, at a fundamental nut-kernel level, there are really only two types of human beings in this world: the kind taken with brain-bending flights of fancy at the prospect of a world in which the Ancient World of the Nephilim pursued a remarkably different evolutionary path and eventually a Triceratops got to be Genghis Khan, and the kind that would wear a shirt that says Poop right on the front of it.

How lucky for everyone, then, that your favorite speculation-engine Dresden Codak has a new shirt about The Trojan Tyrannosaur and that your favorite twitch-magnet Chris Yates has adapted his famous Poop Sign into a proud torso-sheath! As a concession to the fungibility of the human spirit, we are making both commercially available even to the same individual. The choice will rest with you. Am I, you should ask yourself, more excited by the prospect of something that could reasonably be named Stegodysseus, or by the simple and uncomplicated pleasure of a shirt that says Poop right on the front of it? We are not saying that you have to choose; that is up to you and your God and your parole officer and the rules at your group home.

ALSO WE GOT POOP SIGNS FOR BABIES EVEN. The Poop Sign was conceived for this use and potentially no other. This is the sound of the world being satisfied; everyone else can go home now.

Look. We know you got books on your shelves. They are full of paper and that is fine. But today I want to talk about something ELSE. Imagine a book that is massive, and instead of words, it has some sort of colorful image printed on it. Also it has no covers or spine and is only one page. This thing would not fit on your shelf! It would slowly fall over. That is because this thing is a poster. It is a special type of book that we here at TopatoCo may have invented. We don’t know for sure, as we are still waiting for the patent office to respond to our loud and incomprehensible series of inquiries. I hope the mailing address I made up for them is still in service.

What kind of “posters” might exist, in some hypothetical world where they are available for you to love and own and enjoy? Perhaps they might contain information — what if there was a Simplified Interstate Map (Newly Revised Edition) made by Chris Yates, or a Chart of #1 Hit Songs by Genre, 1950-Present made by Dorothy Gambrell? Could this format lend itself to a List Of Essential Information For Time Travelers, or even a Hierarchy of Beards? What bounty of useful knowledge could this format be utilized to convey? Only frenzied, gibbering speculators, gazing wide-eyed at the starry sky above and madly theorizing about what lies beyond the black, impenetrable veil of the future, may know for sure.

And what if this “poster” concept could be applied to making large paper versions of your favorite internet comic strips? Such a thing would seem the height of impossibility! OH NO MY FRIENDS. No, we have pooh-poohed the naysayers and TAKEN THIS TO THE LIMIT. Did you know that we sell Dresden Codak comic prints that are within inches of being as tall as Hollywood celebrity Danny DeVito? THIS IS NOT A THING WE DO LIGHTLY. In fact, we are so serious about this moral imperative to provide the world with goodness that we now offer prints and posters (in various forms) for eleven different internet comic strip titles. That is more than ten more internet comic strip titles than Hollywood celebrity Danny DeVito has Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Not to knock Mr. DeVito, but we are sort of leading the pack in this regard.

I know what you are thinking. (The computer monitor works both ways.) “But what,” you are thinking, “shall I do with this large blank wall directly opposite my bed? I have already adorned my workspace with your informational chart reference posters and some other space with many fine comic-strip prints. WHAT ABOUT THE BEDROOM?” I am pleased to say that one Mr. Brandon Bird has handily answered that question with a work entitled “Killing Machine.” Ladies and gentlemen, your worries are over.

WE’RE DONE. HOLIDAY SHIPPING DEADLINES HAVE PASSED.
GO ENJOY WHAT REMAINS OF YOUR LIFE

Here’s a reminder of our get-it-by-Christmas holiday ordering deadlines! There is a little more info, not a lot, here.

If you order by the following deadlines, your package should have plenty of time to get where it is intended to go. Please keep in mind that we here at TopatoCo do a lot of things, but actually deliver your package is not one of those things. Once the package leaves our warehouse, it is up to the Postal Service to get it to you. Also, if you live outside of the US there will most likely be customs fees. Those are on you, dude.

USPS INTERNATIONAL PRIORITY = December 8

USPS INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS and
DOMESTIC FIRST CLASS AND PRIORITY = December 15

USPS DOMESTIC EXPRESS = December 18

Shipping times for UPS vary, depending on where you are located, but are guaranteed. For information please visit the UPS web site to calculate shipping times and plan accordingly.

All items must be designated “in stock”. Anything “All Gone” is gone, perhaps forever, but at least for now. Any shirts in “Short Delay” status are in the screenprinter’s reprinting queue and won’t be restocked before Christmas.

THAT BEING SAID — if you don’t care about Christmas delivery, order anything you like, at any time! We are not going to judge you.

ALSO — it should be mentioned. We bark a lot about deadlines and make loud, stern faces at the 0.5% of customers who make Problems, but the vast majority of you are kind, friendly, good-smelling and we are pleased and proud to serve you. Thank you so much for your patronage, for your support of the independent arts, and for being normal and nice. It’s for you that we do this!

And for, you know. The money.

Here at TopatoCo, we know you like your events SPECIAL. Here are three options for you that satisfy similar but legally distinct urges:

T-REX SQUISHABLE CHARITY AUCTION For your philanthropic side

Squishable’s auctioning off one of their giant squishy Dino Comix T-Rex figures, along with a car, log cabin, and tiny woman, to benefit the childrens’-hospital charity Child’s Play! Also included in the auction is a print of the original Squishable T-Rex design, signed by Ryan North of Dino Comix and Zoe from Squishable. A great package of fun things for a great cause! The auction ends December 15 so get on that quick. Or you can buy one of them T-Rexes right here.

A SOFTER WORLD BOOK LAUNCH PARTY For your partygoing side

This Monday, Joey & Emily will be launching their newest book, A Softer World: Second Best Isn’t So Bad, with a party-slash-reading in Montreal! They’ll be sharing some of their favorite comics from the book, and Joey will also be reading from his latest novel, Overqualified. Wear a cup! Joey is known for sudden groinal attacks. Other than that it should be a great time! (Your chances of being the one hit in the groin are fairly low but entirely dependent on the size of the crowd.) We know of nobody who has ever attended one of these events who has come away feeling any less than absolutely glad they went, for each is a delicate, jeweled experience never to be described or repeated. In other words, it’s something Joey is involved in. Or you can buy that new ASW book right here.

LIMITED EDITION 2010 WONDERMARK CALENDAR For your aesthetic side

Each year David Malki ! (that’s actually me but let’s keep this fiction going a little longer) designs and hand-screenprints a limited number of these fancy desk calendars, full of 12 crazy woodcuts and 12 nutty verses to keep you grinning all year long. It’s a neat, artisanal product that’s only available for a short time each year. They’re up now at the (non-TopatoCo) WM store through the end of the year or until they sell out, whichever comes first. A unique gift for anyone that likes nicely-made things!

A HUG FROM US TO YOU For your dreams

These are sold out