Illustrate a story by Neil Gaiman for Threadless

Threadless:

If you’ve ever wanted to work alongside the likes of big-name comic book somebodies, now is your chance! Your challenge is to design the first tee in our next Comics-On Tees series. The script was written by Neil Gaiman, the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, and the author of The Sandman, Stardust and Coraline. The Day The Saucers Came has everything a compelling story should: zombies, aliens, and giants feefofumming across the land.

Use the story below to design the front and the back of the t-shirt. Maybe you’d like to incorporate parts of it in word bubbles, or maybe you’d like to design only using illustration. We encourage you to use your own style to interpret the story, so it’s up to you. Check out our past Comics-On Tees volumes to see how we’ve printed similar tees in the past. The chosen t-shirt will be sold on Threadless as part of Comics-On Tees Vol. 6, and 25% of the sale of each tee will go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Front:
That day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden,
Silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes,
And the people of Earth stood and stared as they descended,
Waiting, dry-mouthed to find what waited inside for us
And none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow
But you didn't notice it because

Back:
That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,
Was the day that the graves gave up their dead
And the zombies pushed up through soft earth
or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable,
Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran,
But you did not notice this because

Up for Grabs:

- Your work printed on Comics-On Tees Vol. 6 alongside artists Ben Templesmith, Brandon Graham, and John Cassaday
- $750 cash
- $250 Threadless gift card
- 2012 CBLDF Protector Membership
- Signed and numbered Paul Pope Screened Print
- Print Featuring The Day the Saucers Came script, signed and sketched by author Neil Gaiman
- 4 CHEW comics signed by John Layman

And there’s more! Ben Templesmith, Brandon Graham, and John Cassaday are designing tees two, three, and four. Here’s a bit more about these comic book artists and the rest of The Day The Saucers Came.

Ben Templesmith... Shirt 2,

Front:
On the saucer day, which was the zombie day, it was
Ragnarok also, and the television screens showed us
A ship built of dead-man's nails, a serpent, a wolf,
All bigger than the mind could hold, and the cameraman could
Not get far enough away, and then the Gods came out
But you did not see them coming because

Shirt 2, Back:
On the saucer-zombie-battling gods day, the floodgates broke
And each of us was engulfed by genies and sprites
Offering us wishes and wonders and eternities
And charm and cleverness and true brave hearts and pots of gold
While giants feefofummed across the land, and killer bees,
But you had no idea of any of this because

Brandon Graham...

Shirt 3, Front:
That day, the saucer day the zombie day
The Ragnarok and fairies day, the day the great winds came
And snows, and the cities turned to crystal, the day
All plants died, plastics dissolved, the day the
Computers turned, the screens telling us we would obey, the day

Shirt 3, Back:
Angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars,
And all the bells of London were sounded, the day
Animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day,
The fluttering capes and arrival of the Time Machine day,

John Cassaday...

Shirt 4, Front:
You didn't notice any of this because
you were sitting in your room, not doing anything
not even reading, not really, just
looking at your telephone,

Shirt 4, Back:
wondering if I was going to call.