Fun, premium-soft shirts featuring bold, smart, & unpretentious art by local creators. We help artists continue creating by sharing the proceeds fairly.

The Destroy the Comics Shop is a Bay Area / California based creative collaboration featuring local artists and designers with quality Triblend apparel and vinyl stickers. We’re not some hipster too-cool-for-you bullshit or lowest-common-denominator platform. We’re about bold, fun, smart(ass), and unpretentious graphic street wear inspired by pop art, nature, humor, and a touch of nerdiness. We collaborate with the everyday legends, the bold creators in the Bay for our graphics and illustrations.

We’re regular, everyday people with a passion for art, creativity, and nerding out. We work with select artists in our community–talented folks we trust–to bring truly unique art to the people. That means talking to people in San Jose, San Francisco, Newark, Berkeley, and all over the Bay. It’s not just about buying stuff; it’s about creating connections between artist and audience.

What’s in a Shirt?

If you’re anything like us, you’re a geek who wants to support hard-working creators with unique voices, but you still care about comfort. There’s nothing worse than seeing a really cool shirt with a sick dragon or an illustrated bowl of ramen on it, but then feeling the fabric and having it be the cheapest $3 low grade sandpaper cotton. What’s wrong with having a quality canvas for your quality graphic art?

That’s why we offer authentic, unique designs by indie artists on premium jersey shirts made of Triblend with superior softness, durability, fit, and performance. 

triblend shirt with gradient colors and triangle symbol with the word triblend superimposedEven though people hype 100% cotton, Triblend fabric actually makes better overall shirts. After days of research and testing, we found Triblends to have the nicest feel since it can have smoother, smaller fibers than pure cotton fabric. Blending fabrics also provide benefits that you can’t get from a 100% cotton shirt, like extra durability, better fit, and moisture wicking. That’s why many pro athletes wear Triblend shirts instead of cotton.

Our shirts also have nice things like tailored side seams to follow your body contour better/not make you look like you’re wearing a box, a fashionably slim fit, and enough length to not show your belly button every time you raise your hand.

Although Triblend is more expensive than cotton, it’s worth it because the softness and performance blow everything else away. 

Triblend T-Shirts are the best-looking, softest shirts you (and we) will ever wear.

Curious about the awesomeness of Triblend? Click below to learn more.

Learn More About Triblend Benefits

Supporting Art Because Creators Matter

We founded this business with a focus on creators. Yes, we sell things, but you can sell without selling out. There’s always been a tension between art and commerce; that art is a pure pursuit while money is evil and dirty. Somehow, the starving artist is the divine ideal to which other creatives need to strive for, unless they want to lose their street-cred and be called out for being fake, a “sell-out”.

That’s bullshit.

Starving yourself doesn’t automatically make you a great artist. Working in obscurity doesn’t make you magically better than other people. Skill matters. Creativity matters. Hustle matters. We shouldn’t look down on others for earning money so they can continue pursuing their passion. That’s just being smart. We believe in not limiting yourself to an artist stereotype–be as authentic in business as you are in art. Make quality art you want to share with others on shirts people love to wear. That’s the wealth that really matters–people helping people. We’re all selling something, whether it’s an idea, a product, or a story. We strive to make that sale meaningful by creating an exchange that leaves both parties happy and better off. It’s not just a transaction–it’s a connection.

So we started connecting with our artist friends and getting them on board with our partnership idea, one by one, person by person. We wanted to build something authentic that could facilitate the kind of exchange we envisioned, because at the end of the day, it’s about being the change you want to see in the world–about pursuing something worthwhile. We wanted to build a joint venture where you, the customer, can support independent art with every purchase and where community artists+creators can share their work. We split the profits fairly with each artist (50/50) so they can continue creating with their own unique styles. Our success isn’t about dollars made or units sold–though that certainly is nice to have–it’s about connecting communities and creators.

Curious?

Learn More About Our Artists

Made-to-Order

Our shirts are custom printed in the USA when they’re ordered. That means you get something specially made for you when you order it, hot off the presses, instead of something that’s been sitting in a musty warehouse forever. It also helps prevent waste and overstocking, making our processes a bit more eco-friendly. Waste not, want not.

It takes 2-3 business days to make a shirt before it ships, but they say good things come to those who wait.

Our shirts are expertly printed on high resolution (1200 dpi!) Aeoon Direct-to-Garment industrial strength printers. These 2000 kg state-of-the-art digital printers offer unsurpassed full color printing quality and a soft finished hand feel.

Our Story on Our Nerd Roots

press badge of sunny mui
The first event we ever attended as press. That’s our editor’s badge!

We started as just a couple nerds with a blog on comics and pop culture. Our aim was simple: an irreverent and uncensored outlet for our Deep Thoughts (TM) on comics, TV, movies, and games. Yet, we wanted to do more. We wanted to go beyond being consumers; we wanted to do something for the art creators.

We see the struggle of working in the creative space. We’re writers, artists, designers. We’re also friends with many who specialize in the art of making cool shit. Yet many people in the artistic community are stuck working unrelated jobs to support themselves–hustling as drivers or working in unrelated industries–taking time and energy away from creating the things they’re passionate about, things that deserve to be seen in the world.

So we asked ourselves: why don’t we partner with our artsy friends and get their cool art out there while providing a way for artists to earn a living?

Our Vision

Connect creators with community supporters so they can keep making cool shit by sharing profits on fun + comfy apparel and merch featuring unique, dope designs by the artists. 

We’re a few parts nerd and a few parts lovers of cool design, with a sense of humor throw in. We skew towards things we (and anyone who isn’t a soulless robot) like, such as tasty food, animals, nerdy stuff, our local community, and some humorous commentary poking fun at things in the world.

We’re creatives too, so we want to do something that gives back to the creative community.

destroy the comics snapback hat
The first wearable we ever made
daryl wearing the destroy the comics hat at evo
The debut of the only handmade Destroy the Comics snapback hat in existence at EVO 2017

So hide yo kids and hide yo wife, ’cause the Destroy the Comics Shop is offering up the dopest stuff around!

Values We Think Are Pretty Neat 

It’s kind of a given that the values written on a company’s about page are gonna sound hollow or like total bullshit. We get it, it’s not like corporate personhood needs even more of a boost.

Still, it’s nice to have some abstract ideals we can point to as things we think are pretty neat:

  • Thoughtfulness
    Because we like putting thought and research into things. Plus we don’t like being big dummies.
  • Creativity
    We’re artists and we like art. We like making cool stuff.
  • Humor
    A life without laughter is an empty life indeed. We try not to take ourselves too seriously.
  • Collaboration
    It’s about people at the end of the day. We like to have fun, work together, and try doing stuff that helps everyone rise up.

Where Are We From?

We’re an SF Bay Area original, born and raised.

We live in San Jose, Newark (not the one in New Jersey), Berkeley, and San Francisco. You can find us using the adjective “hella” in hella sentences or getting hyphy to some E-40. Or, you might spot us eating some kebabs at De Afghanan in Fremont’s Little Kabul, erasing a hangover with a bowl of Pho at Pho Kim Long in Milpitas, or grabbing a burrito at Taqueria Guadalajara in SF’s Outer Mission neighborhood.

If you need to reach us by mail (and can live with the approximately 20 grams of carbon generated by sending a letter, according to Pitney Bowes) you can send us real life postal correspondence at:

2066 N. Capitol Ave.
Suite 3043
San Jose, CA 95132

Connect With Us

We’re not just a merch shop. We like to rock out with ya’ll party nerds.

Check out our full on nerd/geek blog where we write irreverent and uncensored articles about the latest in comics, movies, tv, games, and pop culture.

Like us on our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter @destroythecomic, and add us on Instagram @destroythecomics if you wanna get social on social media with us.

Share some sweet pics of your swag and we’ll feature ya!

Or if you’re ready to buy some stuff:

Browse the Shop