Hey, have you heard of Thrasher? Yeah, me either until just recently, but I guess they’ve been around for a while. I thought I’d throw them a bone by directing some web traffic their way. I hope they succeed. The images above are from the always entertaining Certified Pieces of Suck, and this compilation has some actual LOL moments. I only wish they’d tell you where they are located.

This is the second and last installment of Fun to Draw Skateboard Action book. Along with the familiar misnomers and weird physics, the second half of the book features a couple of filler pages with some “totally rad” action and an exercise to match the safety equipment with the part of the body that it goes on.

“Skateboard Action” was a popular title for kids books in the 80’s, as this is not the only book to use it. Skateboard Action from the Fun to Draw series was published in 1989 by Hamburger Press. The illustrations are by Ed Francis, so the blame for mislabeling has to go with the author Debra Rowley. It’s got 36 pages jam packed with goofy little fox on a skateboard cartoons and the typical 4 step drawing instructions you find in these things. The illustrator has the human figure basics down but occasionally has difficulty placing the figure in relation to ramps and coping. It’s as if someone went through a skateboard magazine and cut out the skateboarder from each photograph and the illustrator used them as a reference without knowing how they related to the real world. The illustrator’s take on aftermarket 80’s skate graphics and fashion is spot on and worth a chuckle. Part one of the installment after the jump.

Congratualtions son, your photo is going to be used on some product packaging! Millions of people will see it and you’ll be famous! You’re looking at DryNites sleep diapers for rippers and bed wetters aged 8-15. They were spotted (tee hee!) in the Prisma supermarket in Kuopio, Finland. It’s a serious problem that some kids have. These are no doubt super helpful, but they didn’t need to traumatize the kid on the package. He’s surely going to be ridiculed, no matter how many radical (or upside down) skateboarding silhouettes are on the bag. The product is sold in 21 countries, but the US isn’t one of them. There are lots of active lifestyle and bedtime pics on the DryNites sites, but I can’t be expected to go through them thoroughly searching for skateboards because I have to go to the bathroom. – Thanks to Nicolas Bouvy for the photo

Portland brewery Hopworks has traditionally been bike-centric in their marketing. Recently I heard they were trying to engage skateboarding more. I thought I saw an image of Sasquatch riding a skateboard a few weeks ago but I can’t find it. It might have had something to do with their Sasquatch Strong Ale or possibly Abominable Winter Ale. Now there’s Nonstop Hef Hop, featuring a bunch of “playtime” activities on the can, some more athletic than others, I mean seriously, corn hole? I have not seen this beer in the wild, but I’m looking forward to collecting the skateboard version of this can, even though the art direction in this series is a little sterile. What they really need to do is establish an advertising presence on some sort of local Portland-based skate blog, if such a thing exists. – Thanks to Pete Lewis for the tip.

As I was adding a cool Dan Wilkes and GSD advert to the archives I remembered that Tracker Trucks has a book coming out chronicling their 40 years of history. You might have watched Jim Gray’s humorous and in-your-face video about it on Facebook. Early reviews are good, but some readers claim that the pages don’t turn. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

This is an old commercial for Sketchers Z Strap, but they still seem to run it every now and again. The 2D style animation is very low budget looking. I’m not sure if that’s an intentional nod to the Speed Racer era of japanimation or just a cost cutting measure. It’s most notable when the villain is in hot pursuit on his 6 wheeled monster skate. He looks al little bit like Oogie Boogie from the Nighmare Before Christmas, and he’s not really pushing, he’s just dragging that foot! In the climatic scene, our hero the ninja skateboarder shows off his vintage z-roller trucks.

Jamie Thomas for Olloclip, the indispensable, yet disposable lens and adapter kits for smart phones. What do I mean by that? Olloclip allows you to quickly an conveniently expand the native photo and videography capabilities of your iPhone (or Samsung) by clipping a a high quality wide angle, macro, or telephoto lens. The lenses work great, actually, but they aren’t super cheap, and if you invest the $60-$100 in one their packages, you are shit out of luck when you switch to a new phone. That’s right, though your old lenses don’t become obsolete when you get a new phone, the bracket that mounts them onto your phone becomes totally useless, and they do not offer the ability to buy just the bracket. What are you supposed to do with your old one? Well according to a spokesperson you are “free to give them away or sell them on eBay.” So while I can’t argue against the quality of the product (Olloclips are massively useful, especially when photographing/videoing skateboarding, and they are well made), I can not help but be angry about planned obsolescence and unnecessary waste. After all, it’s not as if Apple doesn’t have a history of changing…

– Thanks to David ODK for the tip. On it’s own, I might not post this guy, unless I already had him in my possession. But something about his amorphous presence is a little disturbing, like some alien sent down to take notes and gradually assimilate and absorb the skateboarding populace into his undulating mass, until he grew to the size of the Stay-Puff marshmallow man. Then there’s the trictionary on the back of the box, often completely wrong or not actually showing the trick it describes. His arm is a lever that opens his backpack for storing Bassett’s Jelly Babies. Very sinister. There’s no date on this, but judging by the board and the description of the item as “vintage” I’m guessing it’s late 90’s or early 00’s. Get yours here.

Cookies, chips, and soda! Actually, that used to be a diet that sustained me well around the time these boards were made. Check out these skateboards featuring the Keebler Elf, Chester the (Cheetos) Cheetah, and the Coke logo.