Roach Studios, 1966–1984: A Printer's Working Life, Reconstructed From T-Shirts

Posted by Jon on Aug 11, 2026

Most companies leave a paper trail in filings and directories. Roach Studios left theirs on t-shirts.

They printed the year on a lot of their sheets. Not all — but enough that after going through 667 transfers one at a time, we can lay out their working life from the objects alone, with no archive, no interviews, no company records.

The years we can prove

1966 · 1968 · 1969 · 1970 · 1971 · 1972 · 1973 · 1974 · 1976 · 1978 · 1980 · 1984

Twelve years, printed on the sheets themselves. And an unbroken run from 1968 straight through 1974 — seven consecutive years, documented from merchandise.

They started with motorcycles

The earliest work in our holding is machinery. A BSA Beezer, 1969. A Triumph, 1968. The Asphalt Animal, 1968. Kawasaki in 1970, Suzuki and Bultaco in 1973, Flat Track in 1974.

Then Detroit. Olds 442 in 1969. SS 396 in 1968. Ford Pinto in 1970. Chevy Nova SS in 1970, captioned “before one gets you.” The Chevrolet line alone eventually runs to nine designs.

This matters because it tells you what the business was before it was anything else. Roach didn’t start as a novelty printer. They started selling to people who cared about engines.

Then everything else

By the early seventies they’re printing cocktails — a Harvey Wallbanger dated 1972, caught at the exact height of that drink’s reign. By 1974 there’s a young girl skipping rope, a sad housewife, and The Munchies. By 1978 there’s a man in a hammock saying he doesn’t try at all.

And the licences arrive: Warner Bros (Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester, Tweety), Hanna-Barbera (Scooby-Doo), and the Pink Panther — eight separate designs, including a paper doll sheet with cut-out clothes.

That last detail is the tell. You don’t make eight variations of a licensed character unless you’re holding a real licence and working it. Same pattern as their seven Battlestar Galactica designs in 1978 and their nine Mork & Mindy sheets the same year.

They were still printing at the end

The latest dated Roach sheet we hold is a Corvette Grand Prix, 1984. By then the transfer wall was finished as a retail format almost everywhere. They were still going.

What we don’t have — and want

The gaps are as informative as the dates. We hold no sheet marked 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982 or 1983.

That’s almost certainly our sample, not their output — a company printing steadily from 1966 to 1984 did not take 1977 off. But we can only report what we can hold.

If you own a dated Roach sheet from any of those years, we want to hear from you. A photograph of the copyright line is enough. Write to irononstation@gmail.com and we’ll add it to the record with credit.

One caution

On licensed artwork, a printed year may be the studio’s copyright on the character, not Roach’s print year. Our two 1966 Road Runner sheets are the likeliest example. We describe those as “carrying a 1966 copyright line” rather than claiming a 1966 printing. It’s a real distinction and we’d rather say so than round it off.