Category: Bad Otis Link

In legendary vintage t-shirt artist news, Greg Link aka Bad Otis, suffered a series of strokes due to undetected hypertension. Sadly, he now has very limited mobility. In the weeks that followed, he’s made promising progress and it looks as though he’ll eventually regain full mobility! But that will take a lot of time – and for an artist that makes a living creating and selling art – it puts him in a bit of a financial pickle. If you’re not super familiar with the name, you’ll surely be familiar with many of his designs that have become seriously sought ... Read more

Interview with Greg Link aka Bad Otis Link continued from part 10. Did Any of Your Tees Provoke Media Attention? Yeah, tons, especially when Punk was still shocking, not so safe like today. I saw a news show once on some psycho that slaughtered a bunch of people. They were going through the guy’s house showing all of the disturbing junk in his house. I saw a few of my shirts hanging on his walls. People were pissed all the time, but that’s what we were trying to do back then, it was PUNK rock!!! While I was doing the ... Read more

Interview with Greg Link aka Bad Otis Link continued from part 9. Was Screen Stars Your Brand of Choice? Really, I hated Screen Stars, but they were the budget promo shirt of the time. The only thing worse than a Screen Stars was a Pakistani import that came in bales like hay. Screen Stars were cheap, so we used them if the bands wanted to save money (or in most cases didn’t have any.) Sometimes they were all you could get, too. There were t-shirt shortages in the ’80s. Companies like Disney were hoarding and buying all that the mills ... Read more

Interview with Greg Link aka Bad Otis Link continued from part 8. What Were Your Best Selling Tees? It probably wasn’t a punk band shirt but in same the vein. In ’82 I did a shirt that said “Reagan Hates Me” I ran an ad in National Lampoon magazine for 700 bucks and made enough off that shirt to buy all of my real printing equipment. That shirt sold for years and was of course heavily bootlegged. Another, that is still being copied today, I did when everyone was moaning about the 5 year anniversary of Elvis’s death. I am ... Read more

Interview with Greg Link aka Bad Otis Link continued from part 7. Mouse + the Dead, Pushead + Metallica, Bad Otis + ? I don’t know if that one really applies to me. I did the artwork for so many different bands but never always one. I did a lot for the Chili Peppers from the beginning and the ten years that followed. But others did too, so it wasn’t an exclusive thing. I just printed it all. I was the default artist in a sense. The band would put stuff off and at the last minute would just say, ... Read more