Montreal Axis & Allies Club Shirts

I suspect that Montreal’s new Mayor, Michael Applebaum, the first Jewish person to hold that office, would be highly offended to see the Nazi swastika on the same t-shirt as the City of Montreal logo.  The Balkenkreuz would be a better choice politically – and it would even provide a nice (albeit vague) connection to Place Ville Marie and the cross on Mont-Royal.

I have a question.  The horizontal part of the design is clearly a submachine gun, but I’m wondering about the other major component, the vertical one shaped like the letter P.  Could you clarify what this represents?

@Raymond:

It’s a skull and jaw, chomping on the machine gun.Â

Ah.  I wasn’t able to identify it – possibly because of the asymmetrical (one-eyed) design.  On the other hand, if I could venture a suggestion, I’d advise against making the skull more recognizable because that might make it look like an SS Totenkopf, which like the swastika would not be a desirable thing to put on the same t-shirt as the City of Montreal logo.

If you wore this shirt in Germany, you could be arrested. Not only the swastikas are forbidden but also the Sig-Runes.

Political correctness is a fact of life nowadays.
Good design but at least you removed the swastika.
The SS and the swastika however are a fact of WW2 as is the Japanese meatball
who my grandfather fought against. History is written by the victors so should we
censor all the realities of the war? West Germany and Japan contributed to the only
War I was involved in and their contribution did not include any troops. Germany
provided Motor T assets of which my unit benefited in the form of an extra German version of
our 5 Ton. The Japanese didn’t even go that far and only provided VCRs, Radios and other
electronic forms of entertainment. Those 2 countries are harsh about their parts in WW2 and
are making sure they do not turn to the path that destroyed their countries in that war.
Some people may get offended by your logos but barring the swastika, I think your design is
harmless enough in context. If you do not wish to have any controversy, leave out the offending
symbols. My family lost members to Japanese atrocities in WW2 but today I work with Japanese
colleagues regularly and am a black belt in a japanese martial art. I even brought a half Japanese
girl to my senior prom even though I knew my grandfather would have disowned me for doing so.
Too bad the game has all those links to what happened in WW2 but A&A IS A GAME about that war!!
Ignorance about the symbols of the war is as bad as Nazi propaganda and the burning of books to me
since I would rather have the truth, no matter how ugly be truly represented rather than swept under
the rug like it never happened. We were the victors that brought down Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini so we have the
right to take their symbols as war trophies instead of glorifying them as some groups do nowadays.

Interesting. Do A&A games have different German roundels in Germany, then?

They are not allowed to use swastikas, the rondels in the german version are made of a red background and the Balkenkreuz. Unfortunately, there exists no correct translation of “Balkenkreuz”, so it is often misquoted as “iron cross”. “Balkenkreuz” may be translated as a bar cross or beam cross

It’s the same as the American version.
It’s the national recognition symbol painted on tanks and on wings of german aircraft in WW2.
It’s what RB has on the shirt on the second version.

I like it!

Great shirt! But - please send me a version of the shirt with the rune stones etc.

I want people to be offended by the history of man-kind’s ugliness, instead of sugar coating everything all the time.  Otherwise how are people supposed to learn!?!?!

This is ink on canvas, it’s not about what everyone else thinks - but about what YOU think.

Where’s the social pressure from some of you to remove the Hammer and Sickle?  That’s also offensive.  Or what about the American flag?  Many Montrealer’s find THAT outrageously offensive.  Just go to a Habs game!

Don’t any of you understand, that it was this kind of restrictionism, and pandering to the lowest common denominator, that led to totalitarianism and the war in the first place?

To those of you who oppose the original design - take my point well Hypocrites.

Might work better if you put a Beret on the skull, Like my avatar.

OR, if the Skull isn’t lopsided - if you even out the curvature.

I would also dice both eyes, maybe one inverted though, black die with white pips, white die with black pips.

Also, I would still offset the Japanese star/sunburst.

Maybe use the skull crack (double it) as eyebrows.  With the stamp on the forehead of the evened out skull.

Could also change the line color of the gun OR the Skull, to distinguish the too, or try a black shirt with red linings.

The red fez offends me.

Seriously.