Big Gay Werewolves is what happens when a throwaway monster idea acquires a website, artwork, and somewhere to put the shirts.
The premise appears in the 2009 horror comedy Lesbian Vampire Killers. The film raises the possibility of Big Gay Werewolves and gives the idea a closing visual appearance. My website picks up that wonderfully specific combination of words and treats it as something deserving public awareness.
From a stinger to a shirt
The film's title means killers of lesbian vampires. In one throwaway line, a character complains about his luck and imagines a future encounter with a big gay werewolf. The ending supplies a stinger for a sequel that never happened: a werewolf howling in front of the full moon.
I thought that image needed to be on a tee-shirt. I took the screenshot, made some tweaks, and added a rainbow flag behind it. My reaction to gay rights is less a sense of taking up a cause than an inability to comprehend why equal rights should be an issue in the first place. The shirt lets that attitude have some fun.
The word “Big” uses Tiny Hands, a font based on Donald Trump's handwriting. Sometimes a very small typographic choice gets to carry another joke.
Taking the premise seriously enough
The useful part of the joke is that it hardly needs explaining. Werewolves already come with a collection of expectations: forests, mountains, transformation, moonlight. Add “Big Gay” and there is room to play with a different set of expectations without abandoning the monster.
On the site, the creatures inhabit mountains and forests in were form, then nightclubs and upscale retail stores in human form. They have been sought after and hit on. The language is enthusiastic, a little ridiculous, and quite pleased with itself.
I gave that enthusiasm its own small home. A site devoted to promoting awareness of Big Gay Werewolves has already done much of its work by existing. The short myth-and-history section, the film reference, and the merchandise all carry the same premise forward.
Giving the joke a visual identity
The project includes werewolf artwork, a dedicated header, bright color, and informal lettering. Its CSS background layers color gradients and shifts their directions over time, keeping the page in motion behind the relatively simple content. The site uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; its design materials also include Illustrator and Photoshop files. It is a compact combination of graphic design, front-end work, and merchandise design built around one joke.
That scale suits it. There is no requirement for every idea to become a large application. Sometimes the satisfying result is an idea that has become recognizable enough to have a name, a look, a website, and a shirt.
The subject article carries the premise into Zwikipedia in the same spirit. Here, the film connection and the work of making the project have their own space.
More mythology to play with
One future direction is to give BGWs a strong emphasis on consent. That is an idea for expanding their mythology, rather than an established body of stories I have already written. It offers room for creatures who can be enthusiastic and intimidating in appearance while caring very much about whether that enthusiasm is welcome.