In Stan Lee Presents – The Condor, Tony Valdez loses his parents and the use of his legs. Then, with the help of robotic legs and nanobots from the family business, he turns from professional skateboarder into the skateboarding crimefighter known as the Condor. The reviews for this straight to DVD release are not good. It already aired on Cartoon Network at least once, but you can watch it for free on Hulu while it lasts or rent it from YouTube. It’s horrible, unintentionally funny, and the main character is almost totally unlikeable. 10 minutes into the plot, the publisher of the “biggest extreme sports magazine” invites Tony to spend the night so she can make him a superstar. There’s quite a bit of PG-13 sexual innuendo, micro short skirts and heaving cleavage, but the overall quality of the animation, story and voice acting is so poor that it’s only going to appeal to a much younger, somewhat confused audience.

Two comics that were originally sent to me as fuzzy low light photographs by MC. They’ve both turned up online. At the top is Baby Blues, from January, 2013. The second Calvin and Hobbes strip originally ran May 2nd, 1987. Bill waters has a new book out and unfortunately, a bunch of dead links on his website.

This video almost got relegated to Broken Kingpins but there’s some excellent dork session and bad joke telling in it. Enjoy some good stuff from Skidmark Magazine

Aldens was a mail order catalog based out of Chicago from 1899 (not a typo) to some time shortly after 1982. This is a page from their 1978 Christmas calendar with three skateboards. I can’t ever remember seeing an Alden’s catalog despite living in the Chicago suburbs during their last gasp. Two of the models are familiar plastic boards, the Free Former (forerunner of the bidirectional popsicle stick!) and the GT Coyote II. There’s got to be thousands of Free Formers in landfills across the country. The Spinner is made from oak or kapoer [sic] which might actually be kapur. Good luck finding anything about Spinner Skateboards on google.

Check out this design for a simple DIY skateboard rack from Instructables. It’s super clean looking and pretty easy to make, I just wonder how sturdy it would be. I’m imagining my kids cracking it after a month or so. It’s pretty clever though.

– Thanks to Kathleen Conahan for the tip.

UPDATE: Well Crud. Posted the same concept 2 years ago.

Andrew sent me a picture of this box some two years ago, but it was pretty blurry so I resolved to try and find one in a store, but never did. In the meantime I found some good scans online via Mr Breakfast and Flickr user Jason B. This is a limited edition box of “Rockin’ Xtreme Colors!” Fruity Pebbles with “amped up fruity take!” On the back you get a full color illustration of the Bedrock Extreme Skate Park.

– Thanks to Andrew Wahl for the tip

Based on the name I would have thought this 70’s skateboard patch was French, but the emphasis is LEO-motif and not Le Motif. Turns out it was made in Leeds, England. This guy looks like a hastily drawn villain in the background of a Speed Racer cartoon. Speed must join forces with the Skate Acrobatic Team to sneak onto the Mammoth Car and retrieve the GRX engine! It’s either that, or some sort of disco football player illustration grafted onto a skateboard. Grandpa, is that you?

– Thanks to David ODK for the tip.

Like the Turf before it, a section of the previously thought to be decimated Del Mer Skate Ranch was briefly uncovered and skated earlier this month. I’m actually surprised that this didn’t make bigger rounds on the Interwebs, even if it was a hoax, and I don’t think it was. You never can tell with Tony and his hoverboard videos. The photo below is of another legendary spot that gets dug up every 5-10 years and skated, despite each “last time” being the final demise. The spot shall remain unnamed because, you know, it’s a big secret. Which of you have skated the bottom spot? Leave a comment if you have.

This Frog House ad marks the last of the adverts from the Summer 1975 issue of Skateboarder Magazine, billed as Volume 2, Number 1. This was the first issue after Skateboarder took a few years off when the industry lumped in the late 60’s. There were only 38 ads in that issue, but V2 #2 would see a sizable jump in number of pages. I’m about 2/3 of the way through posting all the ads in the December 1986 issue of Transworld Skateboarding. After that I think I’m going to tackle a 90’s issue of Thrasher.

A short video from Urban Skate Project about what inspires Clayton Graul. Motivational/inspirational videos about DIY are not in short supply, but this one is worth watching if only for the wealth of spots it shows.