Strolling the aisles at Soap Plant & Wacko, customers are confronted with difficult choices—a shower curtain printed with pictures of raw meat or a Jesus action figure fitted with wheels for gliding action. While shelves at this L.A. boutique are cluttered with kitsch, certain products break out from the pack, their punch lines punctuated with strikingly sophisticated graphics.

Boss Lady, for example, straddles the personal care wall with authority. The products are engaging and authentic: The Boss Lady herself looks ripped from a 1940s tablecloth. Sharp copy on the lip balm claims to “Send Dry Lips Packin’”; the wild oat soap is genuinely made from oats. Shoppers turn the boxes over in their hands, giggling at each detail they discover. But the most important detail is so tiny, so tightly embedded into the Western motif: “Blue Q. Very Best Quality.”

Blue Q rules the novelty market with an intelligent aesthetic competitors won’t be able to match. For the past 16 years, Blue Q’s founder has been collecting designers like some people collect Blue Q gums.

TOP: Seth and Mitch Nash sit pretty with both consumers and employees. Every Friday at the Blue Q factory, a century-old mill building everyone stops working and participates in an art project.