I bought this comic when it originally came out in 1987, but I have no recollection of where I found it. I wasn’t frequenting comic book shops at the time, so it’s a bit of a mystery to me. Skate Slate #1 has a glossy color cover and 32 pages of black and white illustrations inside. There are 3 main stories and a couple random pages that include character profiles, and ad for a Slate Skate t-shirt, and a call to submit your artwork. It was part of (well the entirety of) the Hot Shot Comix imprint out of Lexington, KY. It appears to be the only title or issue ever produced.
In my head I keep calling this “Skate Slate” instead of Slate Skate, but the guys’s first name is Slate so that makes more sense I guess. A curious choice for the cover. There’s a lot that could haver been done with color, and yet this simple approach somehow has a subtle appeal. Maybe it’s the giraffe skin graphic.
The Adventures of Slate Skate “The Contest” Story: John Thrasher Art: John Thrasher Co-plotting: Charles Campbell, Joe Carriero
Tales from The Bogus-Sphere “The Mutants from the Planet Spam” Story: Barbara Price Sallee Art: James Burchett
Particularly Rad by: Starlen Baxter
Publisher: Joseph Carriero
The cover
Here’s a couple pages from this issue that are a pretty good representation of the content. The protagonist is beset on all sides pedestrians, fathers, skate-thugs, and cops. You know, the usual. The frames where he is wearing a suit are part of a storyline where he gets waylaid on the way to a job interview and decides to enter a skateboard contest. If I had a nickel for every time that happened, I’d be amazed to have any nickels.
There’s another story (Tales from the Bogus-Sphere) with a different cast and different illustration style that has nothing to do with skateboarding, sho that’s been omitted. Here’s the first page of “Particularly Rad,” another story with a different art style.
Lastly, here’s couple from the back of the comic. Submit your illustrations and buy a sSlate Skate t-shirt.
Back cover: “Hey Dudes, tell your local skateboard shop about this comic!”
While looking for more information on Slate Skate, I found an auction for a 1986 poster advertising its release. This a the cleaned up version of the auction image. I admit I may have had too heavy of a touch with this. It’s an 11x 17″ poster that was produced in 1986. The producer had high hopes for this series. It would have been nice to see how it developed.
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