With sadness I learned that founding member of the Surf Punks, Drew Steele has passed away after a battle with cancer. Against all odds, the Surf Punks had a huge influence on me as a teenager growing up in the Midwest. I first heard them on the Dr. Demento show, and saw them briefly mentioned in a blurb about “violent surf culture punk music” in Time magazine of all places. The picture above is from Drew’s Instagram feed shortly after Dennis Dragon passed in 2017. Bonus shot of the making of the iconic cover of My Beach featuring the first (?) skateboard-as-guitar after the jump.

Longtime astute readers of S&A might remember seeing a previous version of Betty & Veronica in a Wheel Zeal story in a Betty & Veronica comic from 1976. Archie series reuses stories and story titles all over the place. Heck, they even reuse comic book titles. The series from the 1976 issue is called “Archie’s Girls – Betty & Veronica.” This story appeared in issue of just plain old “Betty & Veronica” #138 from 1999. It is indeed a separate series because the numbering sequence is different. I’m not an expert on the Archie series by any means, in fact I’ve always loathed it, even as a kid. Digging into these skateboarding appearances in the Archie series has made me way more informed than I’d like to be. However, just because I hate Archie doesn’t mean I didn’t buy this comic book! In my online archeological dig I also managed to find an expired auction for the “original art” for this story.

Oh the things I find to buy when I’m actually looking for something else. A positive balance on a PayPal account does not last long when I’m scrolling through skateboard related ephemera. This is the September 1975 issue of Sports Illustrated, with a feature called “Wheeling and Dealing.” Scanned and ran through the OCR for your enjoyment. File it under Things I buy so you don’t have to.

I found this 1960’s era TV commercial for Gleem toothpaste in the Prelinger Archives. I was actually looking for a Bell Telephone commercial featuring Patti McGee but was surprised to find one that I’ve never seen before. The actual date is unknown but it is mostly likely around 1965 or 1966.

I was doing some speculative snooping around online looking for skateboards advertisements in comic books circa 1965 and found another skateboard story and cover instead. The first issue of Tippy Teen has a publication date of November, 1965. This looks like a second rate copy of Archie and the gang, (not that Archie is first rate…) because it’s drawn by the same Samm Schwartz that drew Archie until he left MLJ to join Tower and spearhead… Tippy Teen.

Leo Baker (né Lacey Baker) coming out as transgender has all the narrow-minded and transphobes up in arms, especially because it meant he couldn’t represent his country at the Olympics. Oh for shame, for shame… Yes, the skateboarding community is gradually becoming more inclusive to the LGBQT population, but you know, there’s still a lot of knuckleheads out there, especially when it comes to so-called “core” skaters. Although I’m sure it only scratches the surface, this Time Magazine article provides really good insight into Leo’s journey and decision. It’s a must read for anybody that naively parrots “Why doesn’t he just skate and leave his personal life out of it?”
[Photos: Ethan James Green for TIME]

We’ve added 73 ads to complete the April 1976 issue of Skateboarder Magazine, bringing the total in the archive to 447! There are other galleries out there, some of them are really good, but this one is ours, and it’s the only one that filterable by magazine, issue, year, decade, brand/company, product type, country, and even photographer and featured riders when present. Check out the Vintage Skateboard Magazine Ad Gallery.

I randomly found an old message with link to a bendy Gabriel toys figure of Horshack riding a skateboard. I’ve got the Donald Duck version from the same company somewhere buried in a box, and I’ve posted on the Goofy version before. “What the hell is a Sweathog?” you may be asking yourself if you did not watch TV from 1975-1979. The Sweathogs were the gang of high school kids that were the man supporting characters in the show Welcome Back Kotter, the same sho that made John Travolta famous before Saturday Nigh Fever, Scientology, and arguably his finest work on celluloid, Face/Off…. But I digress.. In doing my due diligence looking for the best pictures I could find I discovered this post had obviously already been done better by Beach Party Attitude. I should have known better, but hey, that’s the online world of skateboarding toys from 1977 for ya…

– Thanks to Tim Jamison for the vintage tip.

I heard he worked there but I did not realize that Jeff Kendall is the president and Chief Marketing Officer of NHS. I guess we can blame him for Santa Cruz’ inability to say no to any co-branding opportunity or strange accessory items. Madrid might be the only skate company out there with a lower bar. Scratch that, Vision is the worst. But I digress…. Jeff Kendall is one of the sources quoted in this article on NPR. Skateboard sales have risen dramatically during the pandemic, much like bicycles did. Kendall says he’s never seen more females involved in skateboarding in his life, and mentions something about that one International competition contributing to the perfect storm… what was that? Oh yeah, the Olympics. The most interesting thing in the article is the link to Proper Gnar, a black, female owned brand out of Ohio that is enjoying great success. The art direction is sort of a less sexualized hiphop influenced Hook Ups style but with women/girls of color and some 80’s retro thrown in.

Photo Left: Ruby Medina by Shayn Almeida on NPR. Right: Proper Gnar

I’m not sure if anyone at Carolina Herrera is paying attention to the interns or not. “Our Revolutionned Hormones” is the kind of thing you’r make up to be poke fun at this sort of thing. What is this sort of thing? It’s 212 a fragrance for male models in NYC judging by the promo video.

– Thanks to Andres Counyo for the tip