I just wrapped up adding 61 ads from volume 5, number 7 of Skateboarder magazine from February of 1979. There are some good ones in there. A few that caught my eye were for Turning Point, Haut Lamaflex (Lama-flex?), Hobie (skate shoes), Powerflex, Independent (w Henry Hester), and Caster with Wally Innouye. Also of interest, there are four winter-related ads in this issue, two for runners that attach to your skateboard, like the Snow Skate, one for ice wheels (wheels, not blades) and one early Burton ad shot here in the Pacific Northwest at ole Mt Hood. Check it the Vintage Skatemag Advert gallery for Skateboarder v5 #7. The total is up to 1,151 ads as of today.
When I posted the Switch Board a couple months ago, longtime friend of the site Danimal informed of prior art in the form of Qwik Trucks. Qwik Trucks are the same concept, but with a patent, allowing you to switch out your trucks or board in less tha 30 seconds. The Qwik version seems a little more professional looking than the Switch Board, but it its the same concept. Who knows, maybe Qwik licensed the technology. It works, but it’s expensive and the practical benefits are are little questionable.
Yesterday’s Snow Skate post with Archie was so unpopular that I decided to follow it up with more research just to spite you, the reading audience. These snow/ski/skateboard patents started showing up as applications in 1977. Curiously, I couldn’t find anything going back earlier that had a skateboard as the foundation. I would have expected something to show up around 1965 but no dice. We’re focused on snow, leaving ice for a later post. At least two of the patents I found are so similar to the finished products in yesterday’s post that they must have been filed by the inventor or manufacturers of those products. One surprise was finding a 1977 patent for the modern day snow skate, the kind with a skateboard deck attached to one small ski.
The cover of Archie #270 (published in April of 1978) features Archie predicting the invention of the Snow Skate, a product that would first be announced in 1979! I’ve seen ads for the 70’s version snow skates before, and I keep looking for them on my hard drive and online like it’s Groundhog Day. I wasted a good 30 minutes just now doing the same until, hold on, what’s this under a pile of crap on my desk? Oh yes, the February 1978 issue of Skateboarder Magazine, complete with an ad for the Snow Skate. That’s the one in the middle. The black and white version comes from Cal Streets. This post is going to cover some of the snow skates over the ages with the exception of the ones that are just a regular board, and those that have one ski mounted to the bottom.
In my quest to bring you weird/crappy/cool boards I found this Variflex board called the “Later Gator.” It’s crappy, but something about the look in that Gator’s eyes is appealing. As the manufacturers and bootleggers of those boards were wont to do, they produced versions with multiple top graphics, which is where the gold in this post really is. There is a bespoke Variflex Gator top graphic which is boring, boring, boring. Contrast that with the Variflex V-Man, which is pretty great. SO great that I’m going to make myself a t-shirt.
Skate and Annoy makes a cameo appearance about 3:30 into episode #356 of The Nine Club, featuring Steve Olson & Steve Alba. Apparently Alba has a few boxes NOS Clouds that were manufactured by Rannalli. The Nine Club used an ad from the Vintage Skate Mag Advert gallery as a visual reference because not everyone remembers Rannalli. The best part is watching Olson crack up about the fact hat they were able to pull it up so quickly. I’d like to thank the Nine Club for leaving the website visible. Also, thanks to everyone who messaged me when they saw it. Honestly, I love documenting the weird, crappy companies more than I do the ones everyone loves and remembers. Moments like this, knowing that someone out there appreciated it makes it worthwhile.
I love it when worlds collide. You’re looking at a picture of director John Waters and Iggy Pop, likely taken around 1990, possibly promoting the film Cry Baby. And, you’re looking at it on Skate and Annoy because I love both of these guys, and Iggy is wearing a Powell Peralta Mike McGill t-shirt. You have to wonder how Iggy got his hands on that. I would love to credit this photo but all I can find are reposts. It looks like it appeared in a newspaper or magazine at some point. If you know the original source please let me know. On the right: It’s the 40th anniversary of the McTwist? I guest was last year. If you’re going to buy a skateboard commemorating the event you might as well get it from Mike McGgill. Ask Mark Conahan about his Iggy Pop story…
With that title you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a 90’s comic book, but Grrl Scouts Work Sucks v1 #1 was published in 2003 by Image Comics. Grrl Scouts is the creation of Jim Mahfood, and there have been a few volumes with different subtitles such as Girl Scouts: Stone Ghost, Grrl Scouts: Magic Socks, and even a volume 2 of Work Sucks. Near as I can tell the last one was published 2017. The web site listed in the colophon is defunct but now there is jimmahfood.com. I haven’t seen any of the other issues and this one is the only one that showed up with a skateboard key word search. The interior is all black and white, and there is some incidental skateboarding on the inside. During the part that concerns us, the girls are drug dealers and they consider hanging out at the skatepark to get some new customers. It’s never the skateboarders causing trouble, it’s always the hangers-on, usually the girls… amiright? Black and white comics can often be a hard sell, but the artwork in Grrl Scouts is so good that you lose yourself in the illustrations. Love the layouts. One thing that I read in connection with Jim’s titles is that he owns them outright, so he must only be loaning them to his publishers. I’m just a tourist in the comic book world, I’m mostly ever there for the skateboarding, but that seems pretty savvy. The work has to be good enough to be in demand to create that kind of clout for the creator. Maybe there are lots of titles like that. Like I said, I’m just a tourist. Educate me.
UPDATE: As I went to publish this I found the original title, just plain “Grrl Scouts” without a subtitle, was in fact a 90’s comic by the skin of Jim Mahfood’s teeth, with the first 4 issues published in 1999.
It’s rare to find an Archie Comics Group story with skateboarding that doesn’t focus on Archie, Jughead, or poor Mr Weatherby. Laugh comics #309, published in December of 1976, has a story with a character named Li’l Jinx titled “The Board Game.” The comics seems to be aimed mostly at teens, but they have a small stable of characters made up of little kids as well.
