Hugo Award Rocket T-Shirt

Coxon tshirt designJohn Coxon’s Hugo-inspired t-shirt design is available in a limited edition from Teespring until through June 30.

The famous Hugo Award rocket, filled with the name of each Best Novel winner since the first awards were given. An elegant window into the history of our genre, in T-shirt form!

Shirts available in men and women’s cuts: be sure to click the drop down menu if you want the latter.

“Worldcon”, “Hugo Award”, the Hugo Award Logo, and the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Trophy Rocket are service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society. They are used by permission of Loncon 3, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention.

Cost: $20.

26 thoughts on “Hugo Award Rocket T-Shirt

  1. Note that this is not the same t-shirt which is being discussed over at Making Light in conjunction with E Pluribus Hugo. This one is in all caps, wraps titles around line breaks, and does not look nearly as nice.

  2. I didn’t plagiarise this design: I have emails proving I came up with it before May and actually showed it to people at a party in autumn last year as well as a podcast meetup in Spring this year. So, you don’t have to buy one, but kindly don’t accuse me of plagiarism: thank you!

  3. @Taral Wayne,
    If Skin Game or The Dark Between the Stars wins a Hugo I will eat one of these the E Pluribus Hugo t-shirts.

  4. I can say definitively that I had no knowledge of any possible previous designs when I made my design and posted it at Making Light. Over at the E Pluribus Hugo threads at Making Light have decided we will sell the T-shirts with my design at cost, so there’s no particular motive for me to plagiarize. Furthermore, I am not usually a participant in Hugo-related or other SF-fandom blogs, so even if I’d wanted to plagiarize, I don’t know how I could have known of Coxon’s design. I leave it up to each potential buyer to decide how plausible it is that two peple would have the same idea independently and then make it public online in close succession; and thus to judge which or both of us to believe. Also, of course, if you believe both of us, you can also decide which design you like better.

    I’ll post a comment here when the EPH design is available.

  5. John Coxon: I would be interested to see your evidence. My previous post shows that I’m currently still skeptical, but I’d feel much better if your evidence is clear enough for me to overcome that skepticism. My email is through Google’s public email service, and the address is first name dot last name.

  6. If the artist who created the E Pluribus Hugo design contacts me via email, I’d be more than happy to show them proof that my design dates to October last year, just so that the artist doesn’t have any doubts.

  7. I am that artist. What is your email? Or you can write to me. Do you understand what I said about my email?

  8. Coxon and Quinn: I’m inclined to believe you each came up with your ideas independent of each other. There is currently a popular line of literary shirts with designs composed of words — I blogged about it last year. It’s a common enough trope after all.

  9. Jameson: I sent you an email, it should be in your inbox as we speak, unless something has gone awry. I’m certainly not accusing you of plagiarism; as Mike says, this is hardly a brave new frontier of T-shirt designing.

  10. John has written to me and offered evidence. On a first look, his evidence is plausible but not overwhelmingly convincing. I am currently looking into it and I will comment further when I’m done with that.

  11. Jameson Quinn: “…plausible but not overwhelmingly convincing…” Aristotle!

  12. @glyer: Which is the probable impossibility and which is the improbable possibility?

  13. Ehh, I pay a fair amount of attention to the various t-shirt of the day websites – its not unusual for two artists to come up with a similar design independently of each other, and that happens with designs rather more obscure than Best Novel titles wrapped into a Hugo rocket shape. I don’t find it unlikely.

    Please note: Said t-shirt of the day websites very rarely get permission (although Teefury recently had a Terry Pratchett memorial fundraiser using Sean Phillips’ Good Omens art, with full permission of Phillips and Gaiman), and while some of their stuff is protected by parody laws, more and more of it is straightforward drive-bys on Intellectual Property these days. Patronise with caution if avoiding infringement is important to you.

  14. Yep, it appears John Coxon’s evidence checks out, based on his recent tweets. So yeah, coincidence.

    Our shirt should be available within the next two weeks, perhaps sooner.

  15. Jameson Quinn: Shoot me an e-mail when your shirt is ready and I will plug it too. It’s only fair after all this bother!

  16. I assume Jameson also has permission to use “the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Trophy Rocket” on his shirt?

  17. Bill Burns: I haven’t looked into Jameson’s design yet, so I can’t comment if there’s anything in it that requires permission to use the service marks. (Like using the phrase “Hugo Awards.”) I will say that putting book titles in the shape of a rocket per se isn’t something that should need permission. Since the outline shape of the Hugo rocket ultimately descends from other rocket designs, how would somebody explicitly tell the Hugo was being used unless accompanied by a title?

  18. Bill Burns: I assume Jameson also has permission to use “the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Trophy Rocket” on his shirt?

    According to Kevin Standlee, who has been consulted on Quinn’s design, generic rocket shapes do not violate WSFS’ trademark. The “distinctive design” comes from the black and grey shading in combination with the rocket shape.

  19. Well, that nullifies my criticism that I’d have quite liked the shading to be reflected in the t-shirt designs!

  20. JJ: Thanks for the info. It also occurs to me that even if the design contained no elements requiring permission, it couldn’t be marketed as a “Hugo Awards” style without permission to use the title.

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