‘Heroes & Villains’ Conjures Saturday Morning D&D

Welcome to the table,

I love that we are in a world where fandom fashion feels as every day as a sunrise. There was a time when picking up a Dungeons & Dragons shirt was only something you could do in a comic shop, and the options were really not all that great. If you were lucky, you could get a white t-shirt with the red dragon art from the 3.0 book on it or maybe a bad screen print of the full cover of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons players handbook, but it was really slim pickings as I was growing up.

Now we live in a time where companies like Heroes & Villians have truly epic design on the regular that only capture the fun of the IPs they work with, but also the quality of a clothing company that really cares about the product they are putting out.

Heroes & Villains always has something fun and new that really hits the spot when it comes to the pop culture space but for now, I want to focus on these amazing D&D Cartoon-inspired offerings that they have recently dropped.

Venger and Nightmare look absolutely spectacular in this T-shirt design. Venger was the main antagonist of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon and gave the kids a lot to worry about on their adventures. His mount, a fire breathing dark horse known as a nightmare named, in this case, Nightmare.

The crimson colorway also sets this very moody tone and evokes both the Saturday morning cartoon color scheme while still firmly living in a haunting elevated vibe that you could toss on under a blazer or button-up and feel comfortable wearing this out and about without being mistaken for someone who shops at the “big kids” section of Target. You can score your own while it lasts at this link.

Nest up on the stack is this beautiful rendition of the dragon queen Tiamat. This incarnation of Tiamat is from the Saturday morning cartoon where Tiamat served as another foe for the kids stuck in the land of Dungeons & Dragons but also gave grief to Venger at the same time. In the show, she is touted as the most powerful creature in the realm.

While there is a version of Tiamat who serves as the evil dragon goddess in the TTRPG and is much more brutal than in the show, this design speaks to the way the designers over at Heroes & Villians can bridge the gap between something that started off fairly cartoony and really give it some teeth (pardon the pun). You can pick up this shirt at the link.

Something you hardly ever see that this totally knocks out of the park is the fun-house rollercoaster ride that the kids from the Saturday Morning cartoon rode to transport them from the “real world” into the world of Dungeons & Dragons. This is the face on that fated ride that aside from the opening sequence and the first episode really does not show up in the show anywhere. This is such a cool deep cut and the designers over at Heroes & Villains captured it in such a creepy way. You can grab one for your closet at this link.

The Dungeons & Dragons logo that is breathed out of the fire at the end of the intro sequence plays out beautifully in this design. The tracks are there to nod to the ride that took the kids to the land of D&D. The Dragon is normally more rendered, but this more obfuscated version not only serves dragon but also feels like it nods to the Fortress of Fangs AD&D toy playset.

I talked to the brilliant minds behind Heroes & Villains while I was at NYCC and this is exactly the kind of thing they would have thought of doing and put it into play in the background. The whole thing feels like varsity meets band shirt in a way that is vintage but casual modern and I am 100% here for it. You can grab one at this link.

Until next time, there are a ton of amazing D&D offerings over at Heroes & Villains and they have a great sale going on right now so if you are looking to shop for some truly cool cloths go give them a look and treat yourself.