Indie Squid Kid

“Octofogey” by Tim Shumate (via Cephalolove, via vaporkillz)

It should be clear to all by now that the Internet is also an infinite source of images of things with moustaches.

design by Fran Court

This dapper fellow is only available for three more hours! So, if you want a shirt featuring a moustachioed and bemonocled cephalopod for only $10—AND WHO DOESN’T?!?—you need to act fast! This is the first shirt from Ript Apparel that I’ve featured, and I don’t know much about them. They appear to use the TeeFury model—a new shirt every day, available for just that day.

Buy it NOW from Ript!

Eventually, I’ll get back to posting things other than t-shirts…

“Bobtail squid with a handlebar moustache” by Nick Hobgood

Today’s edition of the Shopping Guide focuses on cephalopod-themed clothing, but first, here’s our regularly scheduled installment of T-shirt Tuesday…

Sir Octopus

Brand new from Sir Critter (who previously brought us Sir Squid), is this dapper fellow. He’s all dressed up and ready for your office Christmas party!

Shirts start at $15.99, are available in a rainbow of color combinations, and did I mention the octopus with a moustache wearing a bow tie and flourishing a top hat? Also, there’s just two days left of their big Cyber Monday sale! All orders over $40 are 25% off.

Buy it now from SirCritter.com

Threadless®

Art Is My Weapon and Loch Ness Imposter are back in stock!

Both are currently on sale for $12 each (all sizes and styles).

As we know, Threadless designs sell out fast, particularly when they’re on sale, so act fast!

Squidfire.com

I’ve already featured several different Squidfire designs, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of their vast selection of cephalopod shirts. They are all currently on sale (and all in stock, as far as I can tell), so any of them would be appropriate for this list. For example, here’s the SquidFire Emblem polo. It normally costs $32, but it’s temporarily reduced in price to $27. Buy it now from Squidfire.com.

The Squidfire emblem is also available on regular T-shirts (both men’s and women’s), long-sleeved thermal shirts (men’s and women’s), and hoodies.

Diesel Sweeties Pixel Socks

Clicky the Pixel Squid

Diesel Sweeties is a webcomic by R. Stevens about robots, music, and geek love. Looking for clever, ironic, and/or pixilated gift ideas? Then check out the Diesel Sweeties Store! These women’s knee socks—produced in cahoots with Sock It To Me of Portland, OR—feature an entire school of adorable cyclopian squid and are only $6.99 a pair!

Etsy.com

The Etsy community seems to be a nigh-unlimited source of hand-made cephalopod products, but for the purposes of rounding out tonight’s list, I’m going to narrow things down to neck ties only. Let’s begin with a rather familiar looking design…

(Click the images to visit the each seller’s Etsy shop.)

Sucker! by toybreaker ($30)

Octopus by jesswitaj ($30)

White Octopus by satisfactory ($28)

Polka Dot Squid by makbeauty ($30)

Articulate Matter is a “sculptural webcomic” by Justina Kochansky. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday she publishes a new hand-crafted tableau of the daily lives of squids, jellyfish, and other marine creatures. Justina’s sculptures are delightfully detailed and super adorable. Here is a small selection of some of my recent favorites.

Zombie Squid

Phrenology

The Great Escape

Blind Date

Live Long and Prosper

Follow the continuing adventures of Justina’s squiddy creations at www.articulatematter.com, and visit her Etsy shop for prints and original sculptures.

Coincidentally, Articulate Matter was also mentioned today on Cephalopod Tea Party, a blog that I’ve been waiting for the perfect opportunity to name check for a while now. CTP is maintained by a number of different contributors, and their main focus is cephalopod-themed arts and crafts from the Etsy community. Check them out at cephalopodteaparty.blogspot.com.

A while back I created the Sightings category as a way of classifying the occasional random cephalopod appearance in otherwise cephalopod-free websites and chance cephalopod encounters in the real world. While I expect I will continue to use the category in this way, I have decided to also extend it to submissions sent in by my readers!

The following was Sighted by Xtina:

Dwell Deep says,

Gocco print of my original sailor illustration. Imagine sailing the high seas with this scurvy dog! Black ink on Rives BFK printmaking paper. Each paper is hand torn and of irregular size. Image size is approximately 4″ square.

$7 (USD) on Etsy.

So I guess that means the blog is officially open for submissions! If you have a cephalopod Sighting you want to send my way, leave a comment on the blog, message me through Facebook or Twitter, or email me at indiesquidkid AT gmail.com.

Also, if you have your own blog, or Etsy shop, or whatever, let me know the url so I can include the link if I post your Sighting!

Like I said yesterday, Dragon*Con is this weekend, and I am rather bummed not to be in attendance this year. The con is more than just a science-fiction or comic book convention, it is a chaotic multi-media/multi-genre extravaganza celebrating every corner of geeky popular culture. Here is but a small tentacled taste of Dragon*Con from the past few years. All photos are from my Flickr account, unless otherwise noted.

Doctor Octopus (Dragon*Con 2008)

Stygian Depths booth (Dragon*Con 2008)

"Doctor Cthulhu" (Dragon*Con 2008)

Photo by Foenix

Cthulhu and Ichigo (Dragon*Con 2007)

Photo by Futuregirl_LeahRiley

"tentacle monster" (Dragon*Con 2005)

Here is the contents of yesterday’s mystery package—a specimen of the seldom seen terrestrial cephalopod commonly known as the Tufted Cuddlestache. Natalie Metzger is the world’s leading expert on Cuddlestache biology and natural history, and the following account is from her website, The Fuzzy Slug (where you can also see one of the only known photographs of a Tufted Cuddlestache in the wild):

Extremely rare and elusive, the Tufted Cuddlestache is native to the dense temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest.  It was believed that they were hunted to extinction for their luxurious mustaches, which were used in the making of novelty stick-on mustaches and eyebrow replacements. However, while searching for Sasquatch in the remote backwoods of Washington state, field scientist, Dr. Crumpen Von Ludwig,  stumbled upon a small surviving population of the Tufted Cuddlestaches. Little was known about them as the last known living specimen died in 1910. He discovered that they were quite friendly and unafraid of man. Whether that was from isolation, or natural behavioral traits, studies so far have been inconclusive.  Since this great discovery, a  breeding program has been established by Washington State University in order to help restore wild population numbers and to gain valuable knowledge about the behavior and biology of these wonderful creatures. Currently, wild numbers are still very low (estimates are somewhere around 20 breeding pairs) and the Tufted Cuddlestache is listed as critical on the endangered species list.

In addition to being a reknowed cuddlestache-ologist, Natalie is also an artist, cartoonist, and photographer. She designed the Indie Squid Kid logo, and the famous “Bourbon Drinking Squid.”