Conditions, Myths and Cards
The Canis keeps growing. One minute I'm drawing t-shirts, the next I'm designing cards, building mythology and wondering whether a Moon Eater is a terrible idea.
You ever have that wtf have I done moment? How about several of those in a short period? Welcome to my world.
I’m pleased to say nothing is broken. Creativity is flowing.
But I have butterflies the size of chickens in my gut because now I am also a TCG designer.
Classifications in The Canis: Characters, Tokens, Conditions, Entities.
Don’t Panic
As I’ve been building this sustainable streetwear world, I have been thinking about art.
Everything you see on garment or on a physical product, I have dawn myself. In a world increasingly filled with AI-generated imagery, authenticity matters.
Like everyone else, I use AI while developing ideas. The Canis is still young. A couple of months old, give or take. Honestly, I've completely lost track of time
The cards on the site are version one mock-ups. The final thing I know will take longer, I am not even sure if people care enough to want them, so a lot remains to be seen.
I’ve been panicking about TCG’s because, I’d like our cards to be really good.
I've spent enough time around things like D&D and trading card games to know how much work goes into them. I'm not trying to dethrone Pokémon, Magic and D&D. Far from it. If anything, I'm increasingly humbled by the ridiculous amount of effort that goes into building these worlds and systems.
It’s okay, like I said, don’t panic. But I am not going to try sell you version one mock-ups just so you know. Like I said, we’ll do them properly. The same goes for the comics.
Writing The Canis
Everything is completely intertwined with The Canis, I move when it moves.
From writing the mythology to character development, it genuinely has been unfolding.
Partly through my own reverse engineering genius, and partly through completely strange moments of insight.
Like at midnight last night, suddenly thinking, we have a sun eater, we might as well have a moon eater.
Don’t ask, I have absolutely no idea what that is. (Please not another worm)
Anyway.
Okay, bye
So much to do.
Building Streetwear Mythology
The Canis is my attempt to build mythology, collectibles, comics and game mechanics into a streetwear brand. From gaming magazines and fantasy art to star maggots and trading cards, this is where the world began.
I grew up in the era of gaming magazines, comics, album covers, flags and posters. I thought Gerald Brom had superhuman abilities. Mythology and fantasy were my textbooks.
I can talk to you about stories, systems and art for days. The Canis is my attempt to build mythology, collectibles, comics and game mechanics into a streetwear brand.
What’s left of what was on my wall in the 00s.
Mapping game to garment
The first part was easy, ARG mechanics slot right in, designing the characters and mythology, however, can be painfully slow.
I just spent the entire weekend drawing a new version of Sun Eater and the villain, both of which were canned. I’m torn between game iconography and art and have not stopped testing concepts.
Comic books
Accompanying the core range and TCG’s are comics. This is where the story unfolds.
The next generation of art is in progress; provided I stop canning them.
The rulebook is done, version one. The first series of cards is done as well. As the visual language evolves, so will these.
Never thought that kid cutting art and articles out of gaming mags would be designing TCG’s but, there we are.
Star maggots
Sun Eater is part of The Originals; the first batch of my old teenage art I used to start the shop. Weird, misfit art. In its own right.
Reworking this doodle into a re-usable artifact of The Canis has been one of the biggest challenges to date. Raptor is on this list as well.
Due to an obsession with cosmology (Et Al) we have star maggots and axiomatic entities.
Building worlds
I used to complain about my to-do list. Now, I miss it.
It’s been fun and challenging but it’s the start of mythology.
ARG game mechanics, rules, cards, comics, and an evolving world all mapped to our core range.
Can’t stop now, this giant world keeps rolling.
How To Make Garments Entertaining?
This is the story of how Mongrel Logic™ evolved into The Canis; a world built through comic storytelling, mythology, symbols and streetwear.
Visual exploration of The Canis; story telling through comics.
One of the reasons I don’t do too much ‘me working on this’ content, is the bulk of it is,
me sat behind a laptop occasionally staring into space,
me on the bathroom floor at midnight scribbling notes or
me being dragged through the woods by two dogs while deep in thought.
None of this is very TikTok friendly. But a consequence of having a job, dealing with life and building mythology.
The Canis
How could I make clothing entertaining? This was the question that started it all.
Well, there were a couple of big questions I was circling; how would you talk about your brand if there were no social media. Buffering on the second.
Some days of thought later I started mapping Mongrel Logic’s core range to games.
I had already been thinking of the drawings as characters, some of them having travelled with me across continents for the past 20 years, and that world was somewhat born back in the 90s and early 2000s.
I had this idea of Mongrel Logic trading cards for the longest time and not found a home for it yet, these two ideas merged and I found myself on the bathroom floor at midnight, (running a bath I don’t just go sit there) and scribbling notes on Pokémon, GTA, Minecraft, etc.
What about those games made people love them?
The language
I’m very good at some things, designing and systems is one of them; I build side entrances and back doors everywhere to allow me to pivot story, language, etc.
I already had some ‘for those who’ language in there, it sounded cool but had no real direction.
It suddenly found a purpose, the world started forming behind my eyes.
At the end of April “The Canis” had emerged, although it was called “The Pack” for about five seconds. And “hunt the logic” was floating for a moment.
The next steps were figuring out which character/design played which role in a newly evolving ARG with garments.
A couple of days of arguing with myself later, everyone had settled into their new roles, and it was like a light switched on. Things started making sense again. (First time in months)
The Canes {F}
The Canes are modelled after gravity, electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force. I circled this like a vulture for days.
Kar, Mur and Torn have Latin origins. For no other reason other than it sounded cool and like it could be unearthed, ancient.
While I was forming The Canes, I was simultaneously working on Spineless; the design that nearly broke everything, I wanted the world to carry meaning.
Spineless represents the real-world issues infecting The Canis.
If it worked, The Canis could have a repeatable ‘condition’ which I only realised after was kind of perfect; because jellyfish only appear in unstable conditions.
The Canes were forming while this condition was spreading and testing the world.
We came out the other side, tested, triumphed. Protected by tokens. Governed by The Canes, three cosmological forces that fight against conditions like Spinless.
Oh. The irony.
Sun Eater is next
I put that stupid doodle on a garment because I had had the store for about 3 months, I had no idea what I was building but I was showing up every day to build it, and this stupid grinning face kept staring at me.
I coloured him in grey; by the way; grey drawings don’t do so well on socials. Hahaha.
I put him in the store. I was working with GPT4 at the time. It used to have a ton of high school energy, it said and I quote, “bwaaaahahahahaaaa, I ate the sun but I’m sorry”
That’s how Sun Eater got his name. I used to have that quote on a tee, it may return. Right now, Sun Eater is traversing the universe, munching his way through stars, heading in our direction.
I have around 7 iterations of him, none of them are where I want him to be.
I was watching a video on dark matter the other night and have had a brain wave that I plan on trying later today. Look out for the comic on socials, if I’ve got it right, you’ll see him.
And if it works, then he truly is coming.
Comic book socials
Finally, finally, after months of trying to define what the hell I want to do with my socials that doesn’t involve my face.
The Canis has finally taken over my feed.
The Canis speaks. The Canes are governing. And Logic is transmitting.
The Design That Almost Broke Everything
Spineless was supposed to be a small protest piece. Instead, it nearly broke the visual coherence of The Canis. Five days, multiple redesigns, and one accidental stress test of the entire world later, the condition has arrived.
A conceptual piece testing if art styles can hold in the same world
When I set out to build The Canis, it was to try and solve a few problems at once.
I didn’t anticipate creating one instead.
Enter, the jellyfish.
I did not choose this design. It popped into my head one night.
I have a real fondness for political cartoonists. I grew up on Zapiro in South Africa and enjoy many of today’s artists.
The jellyfish concept was my own little protest. I shelved the idea for a couple of weeks until the jellyfish suddenly slotted into place within The Canis. A condition. Spineless. The enchanted ones.
It represents what confronts us. What we’re up against in The Canis.
Jellyfish nightmares
Spineless
I kept waking up at 5am with the jellyfish fading behind my eyelids. Hating it.
It took me 5 days to do. 3 of those were 7.5 hour sit ins.
The one that ended up on garment is the second third version.
I couldn’t see why. Was it conceptually weak? Probably. Was it good? I don’t know.
Nearly broke The Canis
Five minutes after I’ve built The Canis, I’ve designed a character that broke it. I could not tell if it was pushing one style of art too far.
If I have, which style do I go with, do I need to redesign everything and pick one or will this evolution of story be legible? My brain was a rolodex of symbols and iconography.
The irony is this is exactly what Spineless represents
The conditions that spread and fracture our systems, that push to the brink and force change.
I bit the bullet and released it into the wild. I still hated it.
I mocked up the world. I needed to see conceptually if it held. No one knows that the Raptor design is really a sleeping geometric creature. No one knows that the Sun Eater doodle has morphed into a formidable Token. No one knows how dangerous it is. The fragments are only just being unearthed.
It didn’t break
To my surprise, it held. Even if the AI concept mock-up has gone a little literal with Raptor…He was inspired by the Bio-Raptors from Pitch Black. Still some of the best creature sound design ever made.
Spineless
The enchanted. Because pressure always finds a form. The condition. Organic streetwear for those who recognise.
The next 5 designs are planned.
The next fragment is being unearthed.
I thought the jellyfish was going to break The Canis.
It didn’t.
I like it now.
Turning garments into an ARG
A behind-the-build note on how a question about making streetwear “entertaining” led to The Canis'; an ARG built from characters, factions, artifacts and resistance.
There is something about organic business growth that forces you to think.
I have started this from my own pocket, my own blood, sweat and brain cells.
Recently, I asked the question, how do I make garments entertaining?
A photo of my notes in progress on building an ARG from our range
The question led somewhere stranger
I started by looking at my characters. Things I drew when I was 14, 17.
What I was thinking about hasn’t really changed. It’s evolved. I started mapping alignments.
Characters became artefacts.
Artefacts became factions.
This is also where I decided Artifacts was cooler than Artefacts, sorry England.
Story had already been forming around them; each garment had its own ‘for who’ declaration based on the art.
What if you could “battle” or align in the street? Choose your faction.
Can garments carry allegiance, story and resistance?
Ancient pressures.
Ways of holding your ground.
The Canis emerged.
Recognise The Canis
Two weeks of game mapping, architecture and linguistic gymnastics led to The Canis.
Suddenly, it was alive.
Not just another shop, a small theatre of resistance. Rebellion.
Defiance.
The garments became artefacts in a wider struggle because, in ways both obvious and hidden, this is a battle for our lives.
Has it changed my social media habits?
No. 😆
It’s an exercise I’d recommend to any founder
Not because it will solve your distribution problem. It may solve nothing.
But asking the question led me to unearth the world that has been hiding in plain sight for over 20 years.
What is The Canis?
The Canis has been here longer than you know. Twenty years of characters, worlds, tokens and conditions; built before there was a name for any of it. The designs in this store are artifacts. Each one marks where something stands. Start with who you are.
Omens: A world within The Canis
The Canis can’t be entered.
Only recognised. That recognition is the doorway.
The Canis is a record
A world in development for over 20 years. Characters, villains, tokens, conditions, and the three primal elements, the Canes, that shape how you survive it. Every design in this store is an artifact from that world. Every piece marks where something stands.
Start with who you are.
Choose your element. Follow the marks. The record will guide you through.
Trouble is coming. Find The Canis.