BOUNTY HUNTER'S DECADE OF DECADENCE

By Steve Irsay / Staff Writer

Years before the virulent of the t-shirt as bumper-sticker for every sloganeering hipster ("Fine, Jesus is your homeboy..."), the crew over at Bounty Hunter Inc., saw the T-shirt for what it was: an iconoclastic blank canvas ripe for the proverbial (and often times not so proverbial) middle finger to the world.

And they have been proudly flipping the bird ever since.

Last month, the clothing and screenprinting company based in Signal Hill (but isn't all Long Beach, really?) released a new catalog - its first in almost two years - of hand-screened gear from Bounty Hunter and its Ultra-Vixen women's line.

The new catalog also marks the modest company's 10-year anniversary, no small feat in the here today, gone tomorrow world of indie apparel.

Such a momentous occasion would usually merit some "they've come a long way" treatment. Not for Bounty Hunter. They've stuck steadfastly to their guns (factoid: a snub-nose revolver was the first-ever Bounty Hunter logo), eschewing market pressure to clean up their act in order to increase distribution and sales.

No, Bounty Hunter has eked out an existence staying true to core material like rectal exams, underage sex, Michael Jackson, decapitation, heroin addiction, patricide (and matricide!), suicide, and more rectal situations - all on one size medium black shirt!

Just kidding. But don't think they wouldn't try it.

Bounty Hunter began a decade ago as the distribution arm of the now-defunct 23 Skateboard Company. When Bounty Hunter co-founders Tareq Swenson and Scott Peterson (and a third partner who recently left) got tired of flakey skater kids and industry trade shows, they broke away.

The company does screenprinting jobs for clients that have included the Long Beach Police Department and various local businesses.

But Bounty Hunter's bread-and-butter is its original designs, which stem from a certain "misanthropic ideology," Swenson said.

"Yet the ideology behind it is that it's really just a t-shirt company and there is no ideology whatsoever," he explained. "Because there is no path to follow, the path is clear."

Pause.

"I didn't know that would come out so Zen," he smiled. "But it did. That's so esoteric!"

Tattooed from neck to knuckles, Swenson is a veteran of the local punk and hardcore scenes. He is also Bounty Hunter's defacto spokesman.

By contrast, longtime business partner and graphic artist Peterson, doles out his wisdom in bluntly frank, crumb-sized morsels.

"We're basically just a bunch of smart-asses," he deadpanned. "We just like messing with people, so we just took that attitude, put it on t-shirts and people liked it."

A lot of Bounty Hunter's best work recalls late-70's and early-80's punk rock imagery (think: Dead Kennedys album art and Black Flag show fliers). The genius is in context and juxtaposition.

Like Peterson's love of retro clip art, 1960's propaganda and dated advertisements. Take an innocent ad for fajitas and put Jesus in the place of the pinata the ninos are battering and - voila! - it's a statement about "religious overzealousness," Swenson said.

If nothing else, Bounty Hunter's brashness has attracted a core following. Fans include bands like Slayer, and Slipknot. Orders are received from as far away as Greece and Gambia.

"So just weirdos of all kinds," said Jeff Harris, the company's soft-spoken CEO. describing the Bounty Hunter faithful.

But don't get the wrong idea. The Bounty Hunter guys themselves are nice, normal gents. Swenson and Peterson, both 40, are dads. Harris is the relative baby of the bunch at 33.

And while the Bounty Hunter crew is getting older, they have no intentions of mellowing with age - something that would undoubtedly help them increase their retail distribution.

"I don't know that we necessarily ever have to change," Swenson said. "I was always hoping that things would come down to our level."

Besides, it can be lonely at the top.

"It's the bottom-of-the-barrel syndrome," Peterson said. "If we go away then maybe the barrel isn't so deep after all. Besides, there aren't too many other companies that bum people out the way we do."