# Dirty Pool Podcast - Ep20 - Counterflip Apparel **Source:** Dirtypool Pinball **Type:** video **Published:** 2025-11-21 **Duration:** 45m 55s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fF8U49NG30 --- ## Analysis Jeff Dodson (Dirty Pool Podcast) interviews Shay about Counterflip Apparel, a pinball and film-themed t-shirt design company. The conversation covers Shay's design background spanning music, film, and retail, his transition to bootleg-style apparel, and his meticulous approach to pinball shirt design that reconstructs and collages original artwork rather than simply vectorizing existing assets. They also discuss Revenge of Comics and Pinball, the LA-based arcade/retail space where Shay works and for which he creates comprehensive branding. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Stern Pinball has stated that approximately 70% of pinball machine owners are now home users, a significant shift from the operator-dominated market of the 1980s-90s. — _Jeff references Stern going on record about this market shift, noting it explains why modern marketing differs from vintage operator-focused promotional flyers._ - [HIGH] Shay has been obsessed with pinball for approximately 4 years, starting his design work with pinball themes about 4 years ago. — _Shay explicitly states 'My pinball obsession has existed about four years' and later confirms 'I've now been doing that for 4 years' regarding pinball apparel._ - [HIGH] Revenge of Comics and Pinball features 26 playable pinball games and operates as both retail space and communal gathering point. — _Shay confirms the venue has '26 games' when asked to recall the count._ - [HIGH] Shay has worked at Revenge of Comics and Pinball for almost 2 years but had been visiting for multiple years prior. — _Direct quote: 'When I I mean, I've now worked for them for almost 2 years, but I had been going for multiple years before that.'_ - [HIGH] Counterflip Apparel sources high-resolution promotional materials from Pinside and Internet Pinball Database archives for authentic design reference. — _Shay describes research process: 'I'm looking through all of these available materials. Thank god for the internet... a lot of this is being archived by a lot of amazing people who really care' referencing Pinside and IPDB._ ### Notable Quotes > "Don't be that person... if you've been in pinball for 30, 40 years, awesome. Also awesome. You just got into pinball? Awesome." > — **Jeff Dodson**, N/A > _Critique of gatekeeping culture in pinball community, advocating for inclusivity regardless of tenure._ > "I am not just vectorizing the playfield artwork, slapping it on a shirt and calling it a day. I reconstruct stuff, I create collages out of it to make little kind of like their own contained things that work on a shirt." > — **Shay (Counterflip)**, N/A > _Articulates design philosophy distinguishing Counterflip from lazy bootleg merchandise—creative transformation vs. direct copying._ > "When you start to see things in a three-dimensional space like that outside of like, you know, a tangible t-shirt, but seeing it on the walls and building out branding and it just becoming this naturally organic growing thing, it's insane." > — **Shay**, N/A > _Describes emotional/professional impact of seeing design work scaled across physical retail environment._ > "Back in the day, you had cool ass flyers and... they have these crazy catchphrases and stuff like that." > — **Jeff Dodson**, N/A > _Laments loss of operator-focused marketing era with distinctive promotional assets, contrasts with modern Stern approach._ > "It's literally everything you want [when pinball combines art, movies, and gameplay]." > — **Shay**, N/A > _Explains why pinball IP/themes align perfectly with Shay's existing passion for film and visual design._ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Dirty Pool | person|brand | Podcast/content creation brand hosted by Jeff Dodson; produces pinball-related audio/video content and custom audio production. | | Jeff Dodson | person | Host of Dirty Pool Podcast; pinball content creator and industry commentator with strong opinions on pinball marketing and community dynamics. | | Shay | person | Graphic designer and founder of Counterflip Apparel; creates pinball and film-themed t-shirts; graphic designer for Revenge of Comics and Pinball; has 4-year pinball obsession. | | Counterflip Apparel | company|product | T-shirt/apparel company specializing in pinball and film-themed bootleg-style designs; known for meticulous artwork reconstruction and collage techniques rather than direct artwork vectorization. | | Revenge of Comics and Pinball | company|venue | LA-based arcade/retail space with 26 pinball machines; combines comic book retail, pinball, collectibles, and curated installation art; employs Shay as graphic designer; described as 'outer space comic book bodega' with sci-fi theming. | | Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; referenced for market research claiming 70% of current machine owners are home users vs. operators. | | Pinside | website|organization | Online pinball database and community archive serving as primary resource for high-resolution promotional materials and vintage marketing assets. | | Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) | website|organization | Archive resource for pinball machine information and promotional materials used by designers for historical research. | | Brain Dead | company | LA-based clothing brand that also owns a movie theater; Shay previously worked there doing graphic design and film-related projects. | | Whole Foods | company | Where Shay worked for 11 years in retail and sign artist roles before transitioning to freelance design; later acquired by Amazon. | ### Topics - **Primary:** Pinball apparel and merchandise design, Counterflip Apparel business and creative process, Graphic design career trajectory and creative practice, Revenge of Comics and Pinball venue and branding - **Secondary:** Vintage pinball marketing and operator-era promotional materials, Pinball community gatekeeping and inclusivity, Film/cinema as design influence and creative passion - **Mentioned:** Music scene and DIY design practice in Chicago ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Conversational tone is warm and appreciative; Jeff praises Shay's work quality and design ethos; discussion celebrates pinball community, design craftsmanship, and creative passion. Mild critical notes on pinball gatekeeping and lost operator-era marketing, but framed constructively. No hostility or conflict. ### Signals - **[community_signal]** Revenge of Comics and Pinball operates as community gathering space with curated aesthetic, installation art, events, and 26 pinball machines designed to be inviting and experiential. (confidence: high) — Description of space: 'part installation artwork and also part store... very inviting and we create a space that is really cool to look at... communal gathering point.' - **[sentiment_shift]** Jeff explicitly critiques gatekeeping in pinball community, advocating for welcoming newer players and collectors regardless of tenure, suggesting this is a known pain point. (confidence: high) — Jeff: 'What do I not like about the pinball community? Gatekeeping... if you've been in pinball for 30, 40 years, awesome. You just got into pinball? Awesome. Don't be that person.' - **[design_philosophy]** Counterflip Apparel intentionally reconstructs and collages pinball artwork rather than vectorizing existing assets, respecting game details and historical accuracy through research of vintage promotional materials. (confidence: high) — Shay describes not 'just vectorizing the playfield artwork' but instead creating 'collages' and 'reconstructing' designs; uses Pinside and IPDB archives for authentic research. - **[market_signal]** Stern Pinball has reportedly stated ~70% of current machine owners are home users, representing major shift from 1980s-90s operator-dominated market, explaining shift in marketing strategy away from operator-focused promotional flyers. (confidence: high) — Jeff: 'I understand the market is different... Stern's gone on record saying that they think like around 70% of the people that own pinball machines are home users now.' --- ## Transcript the start button and then the like 20 minute walk to get a lot of back over. Yep. Awkward shuffling and getting into position. Hey everybody, what's up? It's uh it's Jeff and it's Shay. Uh it's the Dirty Pool podcast, but we're doing something a little different this time. It's actually live. It's in person. You may have seen this format when I talked to Carl about Winchester, a little game that some of you may or may not know. Uh but today we're talking about something else. It's the shilliest episode ever, but it's self chill because I asked you to please come on the podcast to talk about something. This was not Yeah, this was not a marketing ask. This wasn't like please let me promote my [ __ ] Uh it was uh hey, let's come on and talk about some cool stuff. And specifically what we're the cool stuff that we're talking about is it's pinball swag. Pinball swag. Yeah. And probably I'm going to go on record saying this, the best pinball swag that is currently available on t-shirt format on the internet. That's very humbling. Thank you. But it's true. Can we Can we give a sneak peek? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, let's I mean like obviously we're actually both already wearing I came uh you know to self-promote. I do that for almost everything I do. I'm constantly wearing all my own merchandise. But aside from Centaur and Monster Bash, there have been great like Black Knight. I'm going to dive in and grab some of these, too. Yep. Black Knight 2000. Got the Bash. Yep. Got the Bash and the backs now. Yep. Got the back designs. Do you want to double fishtails at the same time? Shall we? You can do the front. I'll do the back. Ready? [ __ ] I'm out. 3 2 Wait. Front. [ __ ] I failed the assignment. Here we go. 3 2 1. Yeah. Slightly out of focus, but that's okay. That is okay. You can see these in person if you own them on your body. That's true. Yep. And which you can get on Counter Flip. We'll talk about that a little. We'll talk about that a bit later. So, let's reel it back. This design work is incredible. You obviously have an extreme talent for doing motion or not motion graphics, design graphics, vector, raster, whatever the base. Where did this start? Man, I have been doing art my entire life. Like most of us in the creative field, it always comes from that moment where you drew something and some teacher was like, "That's great. You've got skill." Do you remember that drawing? No, not at all. I have ADHD, so uh I don't remember half of anything. I only remember half of everything basically. But when it comes to like dates and things from the past, I could not tell you when, where, why, or who. Um, but I basically been chasing that same high my entire life of someone saying, "You're really good at that." And then, you know, being a kid in school and everyone's like, "Can you draw this for me?" And then already understanding capitalism, being like, "Are you going to give me any money?" Right. That's smart. Start that business early. If you're if you're a small uh human being that is is doing something in school and people like it, make them pay for it. Yeah. That's the way. If you love playing pinball and you are a child, monetize that love. That's true. Yep. Exactly. Um, and everything you do, you should monetize. Every hobby you like, monetize it. It makes you enjoy it more. You're going to love life doing that and you won't be tired every day. I got to put up # sarcasm here, otherwise trying to make it obvious. Yeah. Literally just kind of starting from those humble beginnings. I uh eventually got a computer, started learning Photoshop, started understanding how illustrative design, you know, painting, all of my creative talents then worked towards a digital format. And it was just really just part of the times. I took a bunch of classes in high school. I went to college and you mentioned media arts, which is funny cuz I went to college thinking I was going to do like media arts and animation, like motion design and stuff like that. Yeah. Whoopsie. Uh, that didn't work out. Uh, but it was hilarious going to college and having kids be like, "Yo, you watched the new episode." And I'm like, "Episode of what?" They're like, "Avatar, bro." And I'm like, "I don't watch that." And being just like super out of the loop. But anyways, um, living in Chicago, moving from Michigan, living in Chicago, I then got into the music scene. And when you're in a music scene, you're often just constantly making stuff for your own bands. And then eventually that builds out and you're making stuff for other people's bands. So the idea of making artwork for something, which is what graphic design really is, to help promote to, you know, to give an idea, just expanded through music. So I don't I don't I don't know a whole lot about music and the music scene. So can you explain a little bit about like what it is to be uh into music and doing touring stuff? Yeah, I mean uh touring never quite happened as often as I wish it had. Um, but starting up in Chicago, um, you know, that was existing in basement seats. So, literally like in in the Midwest, we have basements. Here in California, you often don't have as many. I miss basement. I miss basement. I grew up in I grew up in basement. Yeah. Like literally like my my room was always in a basement growing up in Michigan. Yeah. It's the greatest little like cozy space just for yourself kind of thing, right? Um, but uh existing in Chicago, the scenes uh you know, you had a bar scene. Yep. Sorry. This stupid thing. Who thinks they can fly around during our interview? Guys, this is important. Stupid. We're Win Schilling t-shirts here. Yeah. It's not like we're Yeah. I mean, you know, there's these pockets of scenes in Chicago where you've got your bar scenes, you've got your big stadium shows and whatever it might be in some of the bands that get bigger, but all of us existed just playing small house shows, you know, and it's weird and different in many different areas, but played in a did vocals in a punk band, started to learn how to play the drums poorly uh in essentially just like a noise core grind core project. Playing as fast and as sloppy as possible. We tried to sound good, but that didn't work at all. I think what a lot of people don't realize too is that playing like larger venues that have a ton of people standing around is not nearly as satisfying as an artist. Playing a smaller venue that is filled with people who are like absolutely jamming out to you whatever you're doing. It's just it's night and day. So, so, so the band scene, I'm assuming this opened the the door of doing graphic design for banners, albums, all sorts of stuff. Y tell me about that. It kind of started one of the first bands I was in, which started as a joke was called Hawaiian Punch. Okay. Yep. Um, and then just I did all the illustrations, but then I laid everything out through Photoshop and then got J cards printed everything DIY, you know, as as you start like for any aspiring artist, designer, whatever it is, start DIY, do everything yourself only outsource later as you grow. Um, but uh and then from there, yeah, other people were like, "Hey, will you make a flyer for this show?" I was doing tons of flyers as well. So then I started doing it for other people and someone was like, "Hey, can you make my J card for my tape?" And I was like, "Yeah, absolutely." And thinking back, it's crazy when I was charging people $40 to essentially lay out their entire cassette, front, back, J card, you know, labels, promotional materials. For the people that are maybe a little too young. Do you want to explain what a J card is? Even though I'm 34, still a young gun. That makes me feel old. Uh, Jards, cassettes, cassettes. You've got your nice little plastic tape that you would go in your mom's stereo or your dad's stereo or your grandfather's grandfather's. for some of you, your grandfather stereo. But inside of that, there's a Nurelco case, little plastic case. Nurelco was a brand. And in that was a literal J-shaped piece of paper that would have all your artwork, information, track listings. That's what a J card is. Um, and so designing a lot of those became a huge focus. And then eventually started to do like some CDs, 7 in, those are records, not you know, um, not CDs, EPs, you know, 7in records. Um, and then it morphed into actually doing, you know, LPs, doing, you know, full 12-in vinyl records. Um, a few projects that have been, you know, still ongoing, stuff I've done somewhat recently. So, music was a huge passion. Being able to put all of my art into that, created a foundation and an ethos to my practice, which is where it then falls into what I do here. Well, so that's the other thing that obviously this is getting to pinball. Yeah. because this is a pinball channel and at some point pinball like revealed itself to you, but your uh apparel also has a whole film side to it and you are a pretty big film buff, right? I am. Uh we have the Dracula shirt someplace. Oh, yeah. yeah. Actually, wait. Yep. So, even though this is a pinball machine, it's a better Actually, it's not a better movie. It's a better pinball machine. I just Well, wait. It's not that I disagree cuz I both think equally are incredible, right? But totally different ways. an experience that is amazing and the other one's amazing because it is is terrible. In any event, uh so the bands led to media and pinball. Yes. What was that? Yeah. I mean, so after going through music, essentially moving out to LA is what made me a cophile. Uh was already massively interested in film. That's not someone who like, right? No, No, no. I mean, I would, but I don't know if that's actually comfortable. So, a film lover, an enjoyer of cinema would be a cophile. It's not people do call it synophilia which is then it gets it gets it you know the Epstein files oh no um but uh so then being here in LA you have access to so many incredible screenings movies actors directors I you know you really become ingratiated in this entire scene of Hollywood but you get to exist with it outside of all the like Netflixification you can rare rare formats like Vista print too even though they tried to burn down the theater recently that's what I heard at the Vista Uh and um not not intentionally. No, No, no. The The film print for one battle after another uh caught on fire. Um and that just shows you when you're trying to use old and outdated um you know, film stock and and technology knows how to use it. Yes, it can. Bad things can happen. Um but yeah, we get access to 35mm prints, 70 mm prints of like 2001 of Space Odyssey and Boogie Nights. Anyways, so taking all of that design practice, uh I was working at Brain Deadad, which is a clothing brand um based out of here uh in LA. They also own a movie theater. So when I was working with them, I started, you know, doing a few projects that were film related and um at the same time leaving Whole Foods. I was with Whole Foods for 11 years working retail. I was like, were you doing graphic design for Whole Foods? I was actually really Yeah. I I kind of jumped ahead to brain dead. Oh my god. What was What would you be doing at Whole Foods for graphic design. So Whole Foods before it became an absolute hellscape for me. Um Whole Foods actually had sign artists. So very much like Trader Joe's where you'd walk in and the grocery stores have, you know, somebody doing like, "Hey, pistachios 3.99 and they do it all by hand." I feel like this is one of the most underappreciated kind of like I wouldn't call it graffiti, but I mean it's essentially like it's mural art. It's It's mural art. It's typography. A lot of people who do it, who are sign artists, came from the graphic world, you know? um they came from doing graffiti and getting really into typography and hand lettering. Um and I met some really great sign artists, people who actually do that as a profession. It's a dying art. Um because we get into a world where just, you know, large scale vinyl graphics are just printed and slapped on windows when you could have a real artist do it by hand and it looks so much better. It's also sad that the things that are dying arts, they're not paid more to help keep that alive. Paid less. Yeah. which is unfortunate. And that's eventually what happened with Whole Foods is that they had sign artists. I got hired for a new uh new location and I got to do all of the promotional signage, all their like sales every week, lots of digital work, calendars, promo materials, and then Amazon came in and they laid off the marketers and then they laid us off. Yeah. I mean, Amazon does improve most things that it gets its hands on. So, you know, better with Amazon. I thought you were going to hold. You went down and up and I thought All right, good. So, yeah. So, then, uh, they got rid of All of Us, which only makes things better. Um, and then I moved out to California. So, that's when I started, you know, then, uh, work I was still working at Whole Foods at a different location. It was sucking the life out of me. And I was getting such into films and movies and had been throwing around ideas of doing t-shirts, right? The idea of like bootleg t-shirts have existed for a very long time, usually from the space of music and comic books, right? Because those are the ones where people are looking for shirts that are $400. But I have to ask you, when you talk about bootleg t-shirts, you the quality of the shirt is usually [ __ ] Yeah. Your shirts are not [ __ ] No, I do my absolute best to make sure they are quality. So, yeah. What was the learning curve of first shirt that you manufactured? Also, what was the design of the first shirt you've ever made? Yeah. Well, the very first shirt, now we're going back. The very first shirt was when I was 15 and I tried to start a clothing brand with a friend of mine. Oh, okay. So, this is really like a reboot. Yeah. This is It's been going on for a while. I tried to start a clothing brand. I worked at a really cool designer toy store. Okay. Uh very in like the early kid robot era um in Michigan and uh had a lot of like little characters and I was doing a lot of pop art stuff. So I tried to make shirts. It went horrible. I sold maybe like 10 of them or you know something like that cuz I'm a kid. I don't know what I'm doing, you know, and uh but so like doing merchandise and shirts has been a part of my practice for almost everything. But also kudos to you as a 15-year-old for being like I should start a shirt business. I'm going start a shirt business. I'm going to start a clothing brand. pretty that's a pretty aggressive like uh just thing to dive into to begin with. Yep. Well, I mean I'm grateful for things like MySpace where you're like, you know what, I can promote things through some sort of digital. They don't know what that is. Some of them don't know what that is. Remember friend, you remember Friendster? I do. Yes, MySpace. It's great. Early Instagram, Facebook. It's all you need to know. So, what was the first 15 What was the design on your first 15y old shirt? So, the first 15-year-old shirt and uh maybe I could find an image at some point. We'll put it up. Yeah. Um, it was, yeah, it was like a a little character I had drawn and he had a gold chain attached to a big boom box that had a bunch of like crazy colors and some sort of like silly quote. I was really into like the cool kids and uh a lot of like what people would call backpack rap at that time. So, it was very like uh urban cool and hip. Nice. Which is me, right? Urban, hip, cool. Um, but yeah, so going into now living in California, desperately needed to go to Whole Foods, needed something creative, needed something that was going to actually like fulfill me while also making a little bit of money. And I was like, bootleg shirts are sick. Let's try to jump in this game. Been following a few people. I said, let's give it a go. And my first main idea was for The Lighthouse, the uh Robert Edgar film. Okay. Yeah. So, my first idea was for The Lighthouse, which is one of my of the A24 Elevated Horrors, whatever you want to call it. Uh, still my absolute favorite. kind of a Cthulhuish like little bit of Lovecraftian vibe. It's a little bit of just kind of two men going mad together, but then there is the little there's some tentacles. There's a mermaid. Some day gone or some day here. Uh Deo, I still have to do my Beetlejuice episode. Oh yeah, there we go. So anyway, excellent uh both concept and film. Yes. Yeah. And then I paired that I love Seaside Horror. I paired that with The Fog, which is again one of my favorite John Carpenter films. And that's how it started. Can we pump the brakes a little bit? There's a bit of a dilemma here because we're splitting this household on out of the um seaside films of these two. Which is better? Do you think the fog is better or the mist? The fog, hands down. The mist is great. I don't although it does have a seaside feel, it's still it's too contained. It's not a complete seaside. It's more like Inland Empire seaside. Yeah. Yeah. You You get 20 minutes, you get the storm and everything crashes and then they go to the convenience store and then they're just up there. Yeah. Yeah. But miss is great. Amazing downbe. Yeah. Whatever. He doesn't know what he's talking about. It's fine. It's okay. It's not like The Fog is like one of the greatest horror films. Spooky. Great atmosphere. Anyways, uh and then I did one for uh Halloween. John Carpenters's Halloween. Did a bunch of the masks. Oh, it's a it's a really small little slasher film. Um, you know, yeah, it kind of makes holiday. It's a holiday film. You kind of put it on around Halloween time and got, you know, it's just like like a home alone kind of thing. Um, people are home alone. I don't know if movie traps come into play. Okay. Yep. So, yeah, made uh that shirt and then it just started growing. So, I've now been doing that for 4 years and then getting into pinball. I I have to say for for just four years, if you look at your entire body of work of the shirts that are available that are pinball related, the shirts that are available that are film related, on top of the fact that you do graphic design for a little place called Revenge of Comics and Pinball, uh that's a lot of work. Yeah. Do you want to dip your toe into that a little bit? That's a lot of work, let me tell you. Yeah. I mean, um as we were joking earlier about monetizing your hobbies, that is kind of what's happened. And uh in the world we live in, you have to make money and you make money with what you know how to do or you find jobs that you learn and love. And this is something I've learned and loved. And now it is a constant creative drive constantly. And because of that, I make really amazing connections with people and I get really excited about what they're working on and how it connects to what I'm working on. And I want to be involved. I want to put my artwork towards what they have going on. uh which is exactly how Counterflip started and that's how Pinball Shirts started. I want to I want to grab one of these just to kind of talk about this real quick. I uh I think it's really important to notice and mention too that like of the designs that you do, you you don't just vectorize the Playfield artwork, slap it on a shirt and call it a day. Like you reconstruct stuff, you you create collages out of it to make little kind of like their own contained things that work on a shirt. Can you talk about a little bit of the process that goes into this? Yeah, absolutely. And actually, I think if we show off the back, I can kind of show that even even more as well because it was it was a little difficult trying to take apart what would be the back glass and actually, you know, putting it onto a design. Some of these features are cut off within the back glass. And a lot of times if I don't have a game in front of me to use, I'm trying to pull up materials, promotional stuff to find good high-res images to then manipulate. Um, and you can see some of the the half toning on here. And also like look at the detail here like where the actual graphic goes in front of the text here. It's very clearly that it was done uh with just care. You can see that you actually give a [ __ ] about the shirts. I really do. Yeah. That's the thing. I mean like there's there's a lot of great people who are taking cool artwork and putting it on shirts, but it is just slapping the shirt on, you know, slapping the artwork on. Whereas with these, like I am trying to, you know, I'm adding the the stretch stretch the truth and the fishing contest today that goes above um pastor's cabin. like pulling out a few of those details so that it helped represent the game more than just a singular piece of artwork. And I I don't know if you know this, but pinball people are pretty pretty picky when it comes to details. So, um it looks like you're doing a lot of uh uh you're you're respecting the games by making sure that the stuff that's on here is really true to the original designs. 100%. Even, you know, even going to Black Knight 2000, you know, Born and Run, built to last. These were from promotional flyers for the game. That was how it was promoted to operators, which I'm kind of disappointed that pinball companies these days don't do the same. Like I understand the market is different. And if you weren't familiar with what pinball looked like in the in the 80s and 90s, like most of the uh marketing done for them was for operators because people that purchased pinball machines in their home were much smaller percentage of the market than they are now. I think Stern's gone on record saying that they think like around 70% of the people that own pinball machines are home users now. Home users. So they don't do that kind of marketing. Instead, you get like I'm George Gomez from Stern Pinball. you know, you get that instead. Uh, but back in the day, you had cool ass flyers and, uh, many of these are on Pinside. You've seen some of them on videos that I've done in the past for like Twilight Zone and Grand Lizard. And, uh, they have these crazy catchphrases and stuff like that. Catch phrases, additional graphics, marketing slogans, like within my practice for film, it goes into the same practice with pinball where I am finding details, I am finding small things. I'm researching, I'm looking through all of these available materials. Thank god for the internet. You know, if I could go to a library and start pulling this stuff out, I would. I really love tangible objects. But most of this, thank God, to places like Pinsside and, you know, Pinball Database. Exactly. Like a lot of this is being archived by a lot of amazing people who really care. Shout out to anybody on the internet that's watching this and is an archivist that is trying to protect a hobby like this. Thank you. Thank you. Because it is not only fascinating for people like us who just like to dip into it or use it as a resource for stuff. Absolutely. Um, but back to back to the advertising cards, I have to say my favorite thing on there is they have these like they try to tell the operators how much money they're going to make. They usually try to make it a pun in reference to the game. So like fishtails, they'd be like, "Boy, these fish are big, but not as big as your earnings are going to be." And it's just like, "Oh my god." It's just like the cringiest piece of art that you're going to go fishing for new customers. Black Knight 2000 like $2,000. Wow. Which would be a lot back then. That' be a lot of money actually, but not as much as when Black Knight came out because I would have been lucky earlier. Yeah. You played pinball at some point and you were like, "This is amazing. I'm going to make pinball shirts." This This thought must have occurred at some point in your life. It did. I mean, it and it started pretty early and I am a somewhat recent pinball obsessive. Okay. My My pinball obsession has existed about four years. That's totally okay. You know what I don't like about the pinball community? Gatekeeping. Oh, yeah. No, 100%. You just got into pinball? Awesome. Yeah, if you've been in pinball for [ __ ] 30, 40 years, awesome. Also, awesome. Don't be that person. Yeah. It doesn't matter how long you've been playing or how, you know, how many games you've seen or tournaments you've played or like I am still learning, still playing games I haven't seen before. And uh the obsession is extremely strong. Like, so you dumb new [ __ ] You just got into pinball. Tell me more. Yeah, so uh essentially Revenge of is what got me into pinball. Started going there and uh fell absolutely fell in love fell in love with the game. um you know going back to playing you know a little bit as a kid with my dad. We had a cool arcade in my hometown. Um and so it like immediately felt like I had done this before. But the absolute zone out quality, the world under glass, the artwork, everything that revolves around pinball became a massive fascination. Not only is it fun to play, but it's gorgeous to look at. And there's a massive wealth of artwork styles, genres, and then you get movie pins. So that's where like my world's coll, it has art, it has movies. It's literally everything you want. It's literally everything you want. I'm going to ask you to hold for a second because it's freaking raining. So I'm going to close this door. Uh so the pinball machine is a complete package for this. And for those of you that don't actually know what Revenge of is, I know there's tons of amazing arcades all across the world. Uh I did a small video of one of the launch parties uh that Revenge of did. You can check that out here. I'm probably not going to put a graphic, so I'm just going to point. We're pointing at nothing. The video is great, though. You should watch it. You did a really great job. It's got a great soundtrack. Um, thank you. Uh, so yeah, that's the space. Revenge of is a really wonderful place. It really does. That you can tell that the environment there is designed to be uh like part of the experience. Yeah, extremely welcoming, but also with an aesthetic that draws you in and feels right at home with pinball. Uh, I mean, you're you step into a spaceship essentially. Yeah. It feels like a cantina meets like comic book like Yeah. Yeah, 100%. It's It's a it's an outer space comic book bodega. Yeah, that is an that is a much better way of saying that. Well, when I I mean, I've now worked for them for almost 2 years, but I had been going for multiple years before that. So, it's just a space that I've now existed within. What is it like seeing a place literally branded kind of top to bottom? And I'm talking like wallpapers, stencils, like literally the majority of the space on top of its online presence is branded with graphics. It is pretty crazy. It's wild to see sometimes um especially when the branding gets outside of the store and we see it at conventions. We were at like Midsummer Scream and every bit of our space is branded with artwork and graphics that I have built out. And it really when you start to see things in a three-dimensional space like that outside of like, you know, a tangible t-shirt, but seeing it on the walls and building out branding and it just becoming this naturally organic growing thing, it's insane to see anything you've made massive in front of you is like a experience. It's a 2001, you know, you're looking at the obelisk kind of thing. Yep. Um, and so yeah, like all of that, all the branding for Revenge of came from, you know, a very small pool of materials that a lot of the guys were making before I joined in and then developing and building on top of that with my own style. I was about to say like you say it's a small pool of materials, but I feel like like it's you don't frequently see reused assets. No. When When it comes to your work, I am constantly making new [ __ ] So unbelievable. Yeah. But I mean, when it started, the the idea the ideology of Revenge of was it's like a space station. So, we've kept it very sci-fi focused. There are a few graphics and things I've used used and utilized a few times. We have a little space explorer. Um, but it's all edited, manipulated, and reworked in my style, which as we've all talked within the company, comic books are cool. Illustrations, the illustrative work of comic books is cool. Comic book stores don't always look cool. No, they have kind of that uh ancient library appeal that like an old vinyl record store has. And that's cool. There is something nice about digging around just boring cardboard bins of, you know, whatever cheap plywood that they like put together. But no, the experience of Revenge of is is, you know, there's even little like art curated pieces. There's like stacks of TV monitors. There's like an old phone booth that you can go in. I mean, there's like, you know, it's it's part installation artwork and also part store. 100%. Yeah. I mean, it's it very much falls into the idea of like how retail stores kind of became boutiques and the idea of very heavily curating your retail experience. Um, so that it also feels like a communal gathering point, which is what it is because of all the events we do, all of the work that goes into making it look good, making this comic book shop invitable. invitable. Yeah. Is that a word? Invitable. It's inviting. Here, we'll do it like uh the more you know. You ready? something like that. But um it's very inviting and we create a space that is really cool to look at. So you want to go in and interact with it and explore. You play some pinball. You find a cool comic book uh or a Super Seven action figure. Quite a good collection of pinball machines, too. 26 games. Remind me the name of the tech because I talked to him once and is it's Joey. Joey. Yeah. Yep. Yes. Uh Joey's not only a super nice guy, but works tirelessly to make sure that those games I don't I've never gone in there and seen a game off. It happens very rarely and if it is off it's only off for a short period of time. Yep. Yeah. We really really want to make sure that our games play extremely well. We put a lot of emphasis. Uh we have uh you know a pretty much 24/7 tech but then we also have some team members who do a great job maintaining the games. Um and then Joe Coun who is one of the owners is our sort of pinball guru. He's the guy who started collecting brought those into the space manages runs. He's our tournament director. He's our league director. Um, so Joe is the one who brought all of that along with Jeff and the other Joe, Joe Myers. There's a bunch of Jeff. It's not me. And a lot of Jeffs in my life. There there's this Jeff. There's Jeff Eiser. My printer uh Jeff. Uh my dad's name was Jeff. Um maybe I'll name a a dog or cat named Jeff. These are the Jeffs you know. You know, you know. These are the Jeff who Anyways, uh the other thing I really do like about the collection at Revenge of is it is not just a single Stern manufacturing headquarters of pinball machines. Don't get me wrong, Stern are amazing pinball machines on location. They're very reliable. Like there's a whole reason that a lot of arcades are filled with Stern games like Logan for example, which doesn't have a lot of games outside of Stern. Uh however, Revenge has American Pinball games and Barrels of Fun. They have spooky games. I mean, really, the whole gambit is there and which is awesome. It's nice to walk into an arcade and see like kind of a nice diverse selection. You guys have a number of CGC like uh Monster Bash. Monster Bash Mars Cactus Canyon. Do they have Pulp Fiction? I We have Pul Fiction. Yeah. Yep. So, it's it's welcoming to see a diverse like landscape when it comes to like pin choices. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I I enjoy that. We are a location for a lot of uh boutique games, boutique manufacturers, if you still want to call them that. Um a lot I like that. I like that better. I had a conversation with Indie Arcade Wave and uh they I mentioned that that the smaller manufacturers are like indie films cuz he asked me if the the larger manufacturers are going to start imitating the smaller ones because of their success. And I was like well to really put it in perspective like selling out of a small number run of games is is successful for an indie but it's it's it would not impress Stern. Selling 500 games would not be an amazing accomplishment for someone like Stern of course. And the indies also have the opportunity to do weirder stuff with the IPs. They can do more liberties with taking risks on like music, sound design, art, all those different things. And so I tried to frame out like it's not a competition thing. Stern's making a different type of game. It's making a larger scale, more accessible game with IPs that are more digestible, whereas the indies can do more weird stuff. And I think it's a perfect analog to film. Totally. indie studios like A24, you know, that kind of stuff versus, you know, I don't know, Warner Brothers or Sony or some other Marvel, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. So, that compet that competition goal that indies need to take down Stern, that shit's got to stop. It's just I don't I don't like having that kind of language, the sort of argument that as if you're trying to pit them all against each other. They're totally different markets. There are teams that work at the smaller indie companies making the best possible pinball machines we can with the types of IPs we're working with there. And there are teams working on games at bigger companies like JJP and Stern making the best possible games that they can inside of their similar IP restrictions and and types of games that they're trying to make. Enough of this take down who? More pinball better for everybody. We want better games, not better companies. Yeah, that's that's the thing. The The drive between all the companies will only make everyone have better pinball. Yeah, competition's good for again. But anyway, how that relates to Revenge of Yeah. I mean, Revenge very much exists in that same space when it comes to the collection of games we have is that there is although we have a great relationship with with Stern. We love them. We love getting new games from them. We definitely are doing our best to also get newer games that are exciting from those indie manufacturers. We I believe, don't quote me, Joe, if I messed up. We have a Winchester. We're trying I think I know that they I know that they have ordered one. I ordered one. It's Yeah, the Winchesterers are a manufacturer, but the list of them that needs to go out is I don't have mine yet, let's put it that way, cuz we're making sure the customers get there first. And I don't know if that means the arcades are going to get them first either. So, we're very much looking forward to it. Um, and that is a game that when it was announced, uh, Joe Coun literally probably doubled over, flew to the moon, and back. This is really Yes, this IP tells excited. Please like, come hang out and meet him. Um, but he was so excited about it and then as I uh was able to take a look and watch and learn about the game, my excitement is just as as matched. Flipping Out just did a big stream of it. Uh, Zach has one of the first. I believe they have Winchester number 001. So, uh, yeah, go check that out. Yeah, looking forward looking forward to seeing people play it cuz it looks fantastic. So, when you I mean you are essentially the identity of Revenge of graphically. graphically like when you look at the style of revenge of like sure the inside of the place has its own kind of like spaceship look like you say but when it comes to when people think of revenge of they think of your graphic design at least I do it's there yes um y being able to make a identity for a brand has to be pretty satisfying incredibly satisfying and sometimes it's kind of crazy how it comes about um one of the owners Jeff Eiser um he has been working in film and television for decades essentially and he's an amazing creative director so a lot of the input that I get uh the prompts can be very simple, but he really trusts me to then run with it. You know, there's not a lot of back and forth of I want this, I don't like that. You know, that comes up on occasion, but that's just graphic design. But a lot of it is just the trust in knowing that I can take ideas and the sort of, you know, mythos of revenge of and really put forward a graphic style and sensibility. It's nice that they've also given you kind of like complete, not complete creative freedom, but the fact that they trust you as an artist to do an amazing job. And I think that it's very obvious that you've done an amazing job so far. I imagine he probably doesn't give you any art direction at this point. Uh occasionally, no. It's really just, hey, I need this thing and I just do it. You know, a lot of time, I mean, flyers and stuff like that, it's just like, hey, here's the event. I'm like, what is it? He's like, I don't know. And I was like, cool. Then I just figure it out and that's how it comes about. But we also just recently opened up a coffee shop, you know, and this is not necessarily pinball related, but it's a gaming coffee shop. We've got board games. There's There's a big crossover. You'd be surprised, man. Coffee is huge in pinball. In fact, you know, what's Brewing, which is a company that is makes amazing beans and as I had mentioned recently, has just become a like actual sponsor of the channel. Uh, but that's not the only roaster that does that. You know, uh, there was another person talking on Logan Arcade that was saying that they were a roaster and that they have pinball machines at their poster. That's awesome. Yeah, it's super. So clearly you play a lot of pinball at Revenant. Yes. So do you have any pinball options? I don't. Yes. Yet. Yeah. The emphasis is is big on yet. Um I have a small I have a short list of games that I would love to go for. What's on your short list? Well, short list uh for newer games would be Alvra or Godzilla. Which Alvara? Which Godzilla? Yes. Um unfortunately there's been so many pinball machines that you got to kind of narrow down now. Yeah, exactly. Uh Stern Godzilla. Although Yeah. I love your anniversary in the background here. black and white, but I do love all the color of the uh go for a premium premium, you know, Ellie if I can track it down kind of thing. That's a game that's good either way. I think the Pro flies a lot quicker, but uh you know, there's something about launching your ball into Godzilla's tummy. Mecha Godzilla's tummy. I love that. He does. He's really good at holding those balls like midsection. Yep. Mecha Godzilla holding balls. All right, so Elvro Party Monsters, House of Horrors. No, House of Horse. Elvar Host House of Horror Forester. Scared St. Scared Stiff rules. But see, I'm talking like games that I know I'm going to be easier to find and and potentially can afford. But then from there, white water. I I want a white water at some point in my life. I need one. Um but then um yep, white water is down there. There it is. Oo, baby. Howdy, partners. Um but yeah, uh because I work at a pinball arcade, I get my fix. I don't have as much of that need to own. Um I also do not have the financial stability to do so. The Hima machines are expensive, but some of the older games aren't as pricey. And it sounds like you do have kind of a love for this little mosquito is just get out of here. Can I ask you then like if you were going to add more of a vintage game to your collection, which you seem like that you are into, can I can I toss a few ideas to you? You tell me which one of these you would like. Sure. All right. I'm going to do we'll do three. Go for it. Yep. Of these vintage games, which of these would you put into your collection? Sure. Raven. Mhm. Raven. Mhm. Raven. Oh, wow. All right. This is hard choice. So, we've got Raven. Raven. That's correct. Um, that's correct. Raven. It's an interesting way of presenting that. Raven. Okay. This one. Definitely. Specifically, specifically the third Raven that you that you called out. Raven rips. Dude, I love your love for Raven. Raven. It's a It's a meme game. It's me. It's a meme game. I got to play it at Ace. Loved it. They pulled it out of there pretty much. It was like they pulled it out. I would love to. Let's Can we do like uh like divorced parents? Like I get on the weekends, you get on the weekend. Can I tell you a secret? What? On pin side, my watch list, Raven's on there. I am I am on the lookout for a Raven. Yeah. Raven to me is although although it's a tough play, it is the the entire package of the knockoff exploitation style of Rambo. But this was this was a godly staple. And even even outside of that, Williams did a lot of that too. So for example, you if you don't know, this Road Kings was actually supposed to be a samurai themed game and then when Mad Max came out, they ended up reskinning it to be this post-apocalyptic thing and then just slapped some generic name on it. Yeah, but that's those those types of games. I'm surprised they didn't call it like Grumpy Bill or or something like that instead of Mad Max. Yeah. Grumpy Janos Kiss. Yep. Hey, here's Grumpy Janos Kiss. I'm annoyed Eugene. That's my favorite pinball machine right there. Annoyed Eugene. Thanks, Williams. Yep. What is What is the future of Counterflip? The future of Counterflip feels nebulous because it it exists amongst all of the stuff that I do, you know, and uh outside of Revenge of and Disperse Home Media for all the movie shirts. I do freelance work for boutique Blu-ray labels and other musicians and my time is divided constantly. But the thing is is that when I'm not doing all of that, I'm playing pinball. And when I'm not playing pinball, I'm thinking about pinball. When I'm not watching movies, I'm thinking about pinball. When you're not playing pinball, I'm thinking about that you should be playing pinball while you're thinking about pinball. And then my ears start ringing cuz I can tell Jeff's thinking about me thinking about playing pinball when I'm not playing pinball. It's like, you know, the broadcast from the Great Pyramid is like penetrating your head. It's there. Yeah. To try to get you to get back in. It frequency is loud. It's very loud. It's very loud. Um, but Counterflip, there is a massive amount of games whose artwork is hugely inspirational. You know, I I see Wedge Head always do the like, hey, we used to make games that look like this and we still can't. That brings up Thank you for throwing a a question idea to me. Uh, so how do you go about determining which next game you're going to do? Like obviously sale selling the shirts is important. It's important. It needs to be one that people have a kind of nostalgic attachment to. I'm assuming that uh available resources for the graphics may come into play in terms of being able to acquire like high resolution assets and things like that. Of course. What tell me tell me a bit about that. Yeah, I mean a lot of it is just vibes. A lot of it is going through games that uh I enjoy other people enjoy or that I think have a very strong visual identity. Um but then it is also as as we're going to be getting started cuz we now have only gotten five, six, seven, eight shirts in total. Um, you see which ones do and don't sell and you see which ones people respond to and and how you do it. I mean, I adore this whitewater shirt, but it is on a blue t-shirt. A blue t-shirt isn't always the easiest sell. I'm guessing black and white probably. So, black and white sell the best. And, you know, you're wearing the Centaur shirt, which is to me one of the best art packages ever, but it isn't a game everyone knows. It isn't a game everyone has, but they should. It's the OG black and white. Yep. Or one of one of Yep. And it's And they rip. So, when I'm choosing games, I'm trying to think of differences in theme. Uh, when I do movie related stuff, it's all like double features. How can these actually work together? When I'm doing Counterflip, it's like, let's give everybody a taste of everything. Right now, I'm working on a Xenon shirt. One of my all-time favorite games. That's That's a classic I would love to own. Famous sound designer, Susan Giani. Susan Giani. Yep. Uh, I got to see her live not too long ago. Um, and it was a mind-blowing experience. And all of her sound design work on that game is what helps set it apart. Uh, aside from the beautiful tube ramp action, um, tube shot. No, that's not the call out. Shoot tube. Shoot tube or no, get tube ramp. Someone help us up here. I don't know. Please beam this info. Put it in the comments. Come on. Yeah. Anyways, uh, that game rips. And I love the way it looks, too. It's got a great style. Really, really great style. A very uh very like um mid-century modern futurism, you know, 60s7s design to it. Metropolises kind of like Yep. very cool. Almost like Fifth Element, the blue opera alien kind of head with like floating uh you know uh space explorers. And then you've got the the one at your center drain with the butt prominent butt center D. How would you put the True? How would you put tube on the shirt? Like how can you do a Xenon shirt without tubes? It needs tube somehow. I haven't quite figured that out. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's a good call. Maximum tube. Maximum tube. Need all tube. Long tube. Tube on the arms. Long sleeves. Tube. Tube shot. Long sleeves. Look at that. We're coming up with ideas on air. It's actually a sick idea. It's a really sick idea. But it's And here's the thing is that it's niche. It's very specific. And right now, as a small creator, it's now going to be hard to get those into the hands of people who love pinball and love pinball merch cuz it doesn't always go hand in hand. So, can I ask you I'm going to guess, but I want to ask you Can I ask you what your most successful selling shirt is and least successful? Hold on before you say it. Okay. I think that your most successful shirt is either going to be Medieval Madness or Attack from Mars. You hit Attack from Mars. Okay. And well, Medieval Madness sold good. Attack from Mars sold the best, hands down. I'm going to revisit that cuz I want to do front and back um and add some more art. That's one of your like older original ones. That was one of the first ones that we did. That's actually the first design I did too cuz the game manual just amazing illustration right on the front and the big, you know, bold impact Helvetica aerial font of just from Mars. It reads easy. Um, but then Medieval Madness sold well. And then Monster Bash also sold crazy. Interesting. Yes. So, the least selling is again the one we keep referencing. It's either White Water or Fish Tales. These are also These are also new releases, too. Fishtails actually has sold pretty well. No way. When we were at Mid when we were at Midsummer Scream, a little like horror convention, not little, it's actually the biggest in the world. But um I had brought the Counterflip shirts cuz we had a big revenge of booth and people were buying fishtails just cuz it was fishing the never played the game. They didn't know what it was. Same with Monster Bash, but that's easy. It's Universal Monsters. We're at a horror convention. People like, "What's that?" I'm like, "It's a pinball game." They're like, "No way." Didn't realize that fishing was the hobby that that blended over with pinball so much. I mean, I guess it I mean, I love the stories of how they were just hanging out fishing like we make a fishing game. We should make a fishing game. My dad My dad was a fisherman and that game to me is the most my dad game. So, that's why I love it. But yeah, those excellent Chris Granner soundtrack as well. Yes. Amazing. Amazing. Yep. So, very cool. Yeah. Well, I feel like uh thank you for taking the time to thank you so much for having me to dumping your life story from from 15year-old failed t-shirt brand to incredibly successful and talented graphic artist for your own company and for a t-shirt brand. You done did it. I done did it. You done did it. I done did it. 15-year-old you would be super stoked, man. I'm serious. Stoked. Yeah. Well, so one thing I asked all my guests also, this is a little weird because we're doing it in person. If you do like this format, let me know. Uh, for people that live in the Los Angeles area, I'm trying to do more of this. I think it's just a more authentic kind of like chitchat and uh if you if you dig that, hopefully you do and we'll do more of them. Uh, is there anything going on for Counterflip uh or I guess Revenge of that you'd like to specifically take the time to plug? Yeah, absolutely. Um, as far as events go, we have a holiday market. Uh, we used to do Krampus Village. Krampus is a little out of fashion these days. Too many Krampuses. We're doing a classic Santa. Cramped. It's cramped. Krampus is cramped. Okay. and he's cramping. Uh but so we're doing a Santa Village December 13th. Um I actually will be there as Counter Flip and Disperse. I'm going to have a double booth. Um so if you are around the Los Angeles area, come out December 13th, Saturday 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Uh I'm going to have all the Counterflip shirts. So if you want to come get them in person and skip the shipping, which is cool. You can come get them in person and check them out. Um you know, disperse. I always do Monster Plus, which another big horror convention, but that's not till May. So, just looking forward to getting through the holidays and um just playing more pinball. Hell yeah. I just want to play more pinball. Uh I truly mean it that these are the best pinball shirts. You see them on my stream all the time. I try to wear uh some sort of pinball related paraphernalia or my scanner shirt which seems to get a lot of work. Um check out Counter Flip's uh website. We'll put it down in the description. Um there are shirts available of sizes. Whole bunch of stuff is available on the store. Nice. What are Can you Can you go through your size ranges of shirts that are available? Uh we I always try to get uh for counterflip size small to 2X and some 3X's, but if you reach out, we can always order more and get you your size. There you go. If you're tiny or big bone, got it covered. Uh we're we're going to get you covered. Get you literally covered. Literally covered with fabric. Fabric with cool designs on them. Games you love or don't love. If you'd like to buy uh if you want to play games you hate, that's fine, too. What's your least favorite game in your lineup? That's a ridiculous. Um, don't cheat. What are you doing? Uh, least favorite. Um, I guess OG Black Knight, but that's insane to say because I literally have a Black Knight tattoo. Yeah, you're [ __ ] on it. Yeah, but it's just like I would This is modern Black Knight, though. No, it is. This is Yeah, this is sort of rage, but I love all three. But if it's the one I would play the least. If all of them were in front of me, I would go for 2000 first. Okay. Yeah. All right. But then I'd be like, "Well, I won't play Fishtails." Maybe Monster Bash. I played that too much. There's also, did we show off the Demo Man one? Oh, no. Dude, this is an incredible, incredible Williams game, but also an incredible movie. Both true. Also, one of the only time machines that has giant grips on it that you can use, which is like practically trigger canyons are so sick. A look at that. This got to be How many? This is like three fourcolor print like three color. Yep. But I made the most of it. Sure. To make it look like that. put the outlining on here makes it pop so good for the quality insane for the pinball heads. I literally took a photo of the uh side art to use for the t-shirt that's from the game. Yeah, but the way you've outlined it and given it like dimensionality with that. It looks so good. Love you. Love you. Love you. Uh all right. Uh so with that, let's send it off. We'll do a little praise in the pyramid. There's nobody to raid because this isn't live. There will be the pyramid. the great. Oh my god, you got a pyramid tattoo. Yeah, bro. See, Carl, you're an idiot, Carl. This is the real pyramid right here. All praise. Thank you for watching, everybody. _(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-15 | Item ID: 41addfe7-123e-4ac8-b63d-9ee1cdfdd139*