Success is 99% other people's inspiration

I'm usually a person who supports the proliferation of greater amounts of Hayley Mills merchandise. But this image from a users' personal online store of Hayley and a Sleestak on a t-shirt caught my attention this morning.

The image of a Sleestak posing with Hayley Mills that is used on the shirt and poster is from a quick-and-dirty photo manipulation I did for the for the blog back in back in November 2005. The only change to the original image I posted is the addition of some text at the bottom commemorating a fictional band and concert. I don't know how long the t-shirt and poster have been for sale. The seller information says 2007 but I regularly search for Hayley Mills and Sleestak references and this is the first I have seen of it.

While I don't own the original image of Hayley Mills and her father that I pasted a Sleestak head into, I don't make any money off of it either. I use it for review, parody and unabashed fan purposes. The image isn't a secret as you can find the original on the web. Heck, there is even a colorized version a friend fancied up for me.

This guy is charging a lot of money for a t-shirt where 99% of the product is from work done by someone else. The thing is, anyone can make their own customized t-shirt at much less expense. The website he is using is only one of many custom clothing sites that are available. Furthermore, anyone with a printer and an iron can make their own and far more original hipster pop-culture t-shirt at home for even less.

Now I know how Tony Abruzzo must have felt.