The rabbit holes I fall into… A reader sent in a picture inquiring about a 70’s skateboard he found that had a “Jordy” logo screen printed on the bottom. I felt pretty cocksure that I’d be able to track down an old advert or something. It seemed to me to be an English brand, or otherwise European, but boy did I strike out. Well maybe instead I hit a foul ball over the back fence? I did discover a lot of pictures related to an Italian TV show called Striscia la Notizia that is a satirical TV news program. A quick google image search revealed that it’s like the Daily Show with cleavage, and lots of it. I spent hours on this post. Hours… Dive into obscure Jordy-related Italian skateboard history with me, it’s slightly more interesting than you think!

Cleaning out the hard drive… I spotted The book Skateboard Party on a 2017 poster for Battle of the Books at my kid’s school. It’s book two of The Carver Chronicles, by Karen English, Illustrated by Laura Freeman. The book was published in 2015. Here’s the synopsis: Richard can’t wait to show off his flat-ground Ollies at a friend’s birthday party at the skate park, but a note home from his teacher threatens to ruin his plans. He really meant to finish his assignment on howler monkeys, but he just got . . . distracted. If only he could focus on his schoolwork, he wouldn’t get into this kind of trouble! Can Richard manage to put off getting the note signed (and facing the consequences) until after the party, or will the deception. Just a heads up: The Dead Kennedys do not make an appearance in this book.

Les Bidasses en Vadrouille is French movie made in 1979, and was the first of several starring the French band band Martin Circus. The title translates to “The Soldiers on the Move,”and it looks like they were “soldiers” in at least three titles. Here’s a translation of the plot synopsis: After the big maneuvers, four young soldiers, René, Sylvain, Gérard and Alain, arrive at the end of their military service and take a two hundred kilometer ride with a latest model AM17 assault tank nicknamed “the Invincible” in order to reach their base. Forced to clean the machine, the soldiers will cause panic in a market and involuntarily commit a hold-up. Part of this zany journey involves an extended skateboard (planche de skate) sequence. – Thanks to Doc Skaterock for the tip

Vol. 2, No. 21, of Laugh was published in June, 1990 by Archie Comics. Goddamned Archie…. This issue has story featuring Sabrina the Teenage Witch, called “Zoomin’ Broom!” In the story, Sabrina gets a broom from her aunts for her birthday , even though she wants a car. Looking for a way to camouflage the broom, she saws off the bristles and nails it to the bottom of her old skateboard to create a hoverboard! Hold on is that canon in the witching world? I assumed if anything, it would have been the broom head that made the broom fly. Back to the story, while skating with her friend Charlie, they run into some male chauvinist pigs (come on man, it’s the 90’s!) at the skatepark and she shows them up. Then they catch the Vultures concert by hovering overhead the outdoor venue. Unfortunately, Debbie Harry was nowhere to be seen.

This cartoon is from Finnish cartoonist Marko Raasina, the creator of Nerd and Jock. You can see some of his work here, and get his exclusive content at Patreon.

In honor of Halloween here’s a terrifying ghost named Casper. This is issue #96 of Casper’s Ghostland (and all his friends) from 1977. Harvey Comics is sort of the Hanna-Barbera of comic books, as in cheap and not very good. Casper rides a “sky board” on the cover, floating above an unnamed child on a skateboard in case you don’t get the joke. It’s good thing the motion lines and puffs are coming from his leg and not his rear end. Can ghosts fart?

I’ve added 47 ads from the May, 1979 issue of Skateboarder magazine to the Vintage Skatemag Advert gallery, bringing the total number of ads in the gallery to 1093! Some highlights include Wally Innouye for Caster, a skateboard tourism service called Skatour, a Tracker ad with Doug Schneider with some art direction that looks like it might have influenced Thrasher before it came out, Variflex trucks that never stood a chance, and brand new (at the time) Kryptonics vertical beam wood decks.

Along with social media posts, Surfer Today has confirmed that Patti McGee passed away on Oct 15th at the age of 79 due to complications from a recent stroke. Patti was the world’s first female professional skateboarder, and the first female to appear on the cover of a skateboarding magazine. Many people remember her iconic cover of Life Magazine as well, likely the first appearance of a skateboarder on the cover of a non-skateboarding magazine. Patti appeared on the TV game show What’s My Line? in 1965 as well as other TV programs with Mike Douglas and  The Johnny Carson Show, as well as a Bell Telephone commercial. She was the first female inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame. Juice Magazine has an interview with Patti conducted in 2017 by Steve Olson. By all accounts she was a lovely and inspiring person to all who knew her. A true legend. Photo: Patti McGee

Up to this point I’ve avoided posting any AI generated skateboarding content. While researching some pics a reader sent in (anyone ever hear of a Jordy brand skateboard?) my image search came up with some bizarre AI generated skateboards on the stock art site Freepik that were too good/bad to ignore. It looks like someone dumped a bunch of skateboard images that were generated by AI, which is fine and dandy for a generic image, but they must not have proofed these. It turns out the only thing AI is worse at generating than human hands is skateboard trucks, and the spelling of the word “skateboard.”

Day 7 (!) of 7 Days of Jughead! I made it! This is volume 2, issue #34 of Jughead published in June of 1992. It has a couple of stories with skateboarding, I Was a Teenage Jughead and Lessons in Skateboarding. Even Jughead himself asks, is this a joke?