Category Archives: Merchandise
Library Card 3503 / Exploring the Moon
This library card comes from an old copy of Roy A. Gallant’s “Exploring the Moon” and shows the circulation history of this particular edition throughout the 1980s.
Gallant has been a professor at the University of Southern Maine since 1979 and is the director there of the Southworth Planetarium. Before that however, he began his writing career with “Boy’s Life” magazine. When his article on the origin of the moon resulted in hundreds of letters of interest, he began to consider a career as a science writer.
Gallant’s first book, “Exploring the Moon,” was published in 1955 and not only sold over 100,000 copies but led to a series of ‘Exploring’ books touching on chemistry, weather and planets.
This book was, for many, an introduction to the Moon, as it would be another fourteen years before Neil Armstrong set foot on it, and four years before the Soviet Union crashed their Luna II probe into the surface.
Gallant’s career would span 50 years and include 96 titles. His last book, “Meteorite Hunter”, was published in 2001, and chronicled his journey across Siberia in search of anything related to the Tunguska Event of 1908, an unexplained explosion said to be 1000 times more powerful than Hiroshima.
Visit our shop at Society6 to see this library card and more on a variety of great products!
Welcome to Cheektavegas
Four years ago on December 17th, I received a message while I was out with some friends, from someone who had found this “Welcome to Cheektavegas” design on CafePress, where I had some designs up on glasses or water bottles or something. She asked if it was available as an art print and although it wasn’t at the time—I hadn’t had a chance to really get my Society6 page going—I asked her to give me an hour, at which point I raced home and worked on uploading the design.
I’d used Society6 for some other work I’d done, but only had my personal stuff up on CafePress and I hated (and still hate) the process there to upload designs on new products. Society6 was so much easier to use, even if there was a lot of resizing involved to meet each items pixel requirements and dimensions.
My shop wasn’t set up because I’d been dragging my feet a little on it; some of the designs weren’t ready or needed to be updated, cleaned up a little, or just weren’t good enough. I was figuring things out with Photoshop as I went, I’m amazed some of those early designs o came up with looked as good as they did. And I didn’t really think they looked that great, but it was the best I could do.
I was able to upload the design and message her back that it should show up shortly; I opened a beer, sat back and waited then for my first sale with Society6, the first $1.46 I earned on my own.
That would be the only money I made until the following September, but it was still pretty cool. That first year, I sold only three items. A few years and the Christmas season makes a big difference, since I sold three items today alone. And while I’m not selling massive amounts of stuff, usually enough a month to cover a tank of gas, I’m always going to be proud of what does sell, what people out there decide to buy, to bring into their homes or offer as gifts to the people in their lives. And I’ll always be grateful to that first customer who messaged me and got me moving.
And also a little terrified that my stuff is garbage. That’ll never change.
Buffalo By AM&A’s 1987
Recently, I came across an old clock hanging in a customer’s bathroom. It was a cool Buffalo skyline illustration, and then I noticed the AM&A’s name and year and thought it would be cool to clean it up and make a new clock.
The original one was square, so looking at it now, I may need to go back and move the 9 & 3 out a bit to fit the new circular clock face Society6 uses.
————————————————
————————————————
Gas Station Burrito 