Graniph, the T-shirt powerhouse based in Japan, has long been on our list of favorite T-shirt shops (Yes, we keep a list. It's hidden away in my fridge). And we've always appreciated Graniph's persistence in trying to produce T-shirts that literally act as canvases for well known artists' illustrations, photos, etc., even if they sometimes miss the mark in mixing that popular art and the T-shirt's form perfectly. Long story short: When Graniph finished it's second annual International T-shirt Competition and the winning T-shirts went on sale we were stoked. And we are once again impressed by the breadth of art they've screened onto their tees, all from a great crew of up and coming artists. This is the kind of thing we always imagined big T-shirt shops would be doing and Graniph does it very well.

Browse Graniph's latest tees on Rumplo.

Also, we'd love to hear what you think about the Grahiph's latest tees, and about what art you think does or doesn't translates well onto T-shirts. Comment away!

An Interview with Dave Decat

Rumplo Mr. Decat, these T-shirts are amazing -- some of the best we've ever seen. Can you tell us the story behind these illustrations?

Dave Decat First of all thanx for the compliment!!!
The story is simple ... Lionel who's the boss of [SIXPACK] saw the portraits of french thugs I did a year ago on my MySpace page and asked me if I could do some more to print ... He loved the idea of french tattoos, which are very exotic by the way, even for french people. At first I wasn't that interested cauz I always wanted to print shirts on my own, but I checked SIXPACK's site and discovered that they had a lot of cool and well known illustrators and graphists .... so I told myself why not... they have a amazing stock and are very well distributed all over Europe and now a little bit in the states.

Rumplo Where does the man labeled "Child of Misfortune" (or "Enfant du Malheur") come from?

Dave Decat It's a traditional tattoo from the underworld ... mostly all of the tattoos I drew used to exist .. I just invented a few.

Rumplo Quite a few of the illustrations on your MySpace page include shady or criminal looking characters... What in particular interests you about these people?

Dave Decat I love those misfits... the scum of the earth deserves a little homage ... they're just the other side of the mirror, the real victims of society and they look so fucked up!!! That's why I like those dark figures.

Rumplo Do you plan on making more T-shirts? What do you think of the medium?

Dave Decat I already did three others (something different but in the same spirit) for SIXPACK and I'm working right now on three new ones!!! For those I'm totally changing the subject ... more of a freak show stuff I think.

Rumplo Thanks Dave!

Check out Dave's MySpace Page for more of his illustrations and (hopefully) news of his upcoming T-shirts.