Throughout our storied, if unremarkable, history, No Star has had a semi-fascinating run of prophetic t-shirt designs. It seems that every couple seasons we debate pulling a shirt from the lineup as it too closely parallels real-life, real-crappy events. We had our “Big Bucks. No Whammies” tee we scrapped after 9/11 as it depicted people assuming the crash position on an airline safety card.

We had the controversial “Tornadoes Love Trailers” shirt that coincided with Katrina. We decided that though hurricanes and tornadoes share many qualities, not the least of which being sustained gale-force winds, they are not synonymous and one would not be mistaken for the other at a social gathering. We printed the shirt, and, ironically, ended up donating hundreds of those very tees to the displaced and shirtless victims of Katrina. We should have cut our tags out.

A few years back, No Star also had the “Mt. St. Helens Blows” tee. That one was more of a close call than anything really. If we had designed a shirt that said “Mt. St. Helens Steams and Burps Ash for a Month and then Goes Back to Sleep”, now that would have been eerie.

Now, we have this….Killer Whale. Ugh. We don’t really think it is right to keep 13,000 pound animals in swimming pools, nor are we proponents arming and tattooing them. That said, what happened at Seaworld was undeniably tragic.