It’s been a while since I updated the 80’s Skate Zine gallery, so here’s Contort #7 from some time in the mid to late 80’s. Theres no date listed, but both MC’s Bodyslam and Skate and Annoy are listed/reviewed so I’m guessing ’88 or ’89.

I become sick whenever I hear the words “war” and “desert” nowadays, so I almost decided not to post this very crappy board. The drawing has absolutely nothing to do with skateboarding,  besides that it takes us back to the early 90’s when this never-ending war started and skateboarding was about to die. Can somebody please explain to me how you could buy this for your kids? It’s still on sale for an explosive price on eBay.

I have no idea what this pin is supposed to mean. It’s an 80’s era pin, possibly early 90’s. Maybe the 40 down the drain is for your dead homies? All I know for sure is that the first thing I thought of when I saw the weird face on the skateboarder was the movie They Live. Sigh… R.I.P. Rowdy Roddy Piper.

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.

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.

When it’s time to kick up your wheels, do it with one of our deluxe skateboards. All are constructed of maple hardwood with silkscreened designs and sand grip tape surface… Each model has 9″ trucks, precision bearings and kicktails. From the 1986 Sears Wishbook, featuring the usual suspects from Variflex as well as a couple unknown brands, a “vinyl” skateboard, prepackaged plastic accessories and some craptacular safety equipment. Aside from the Variflex Voodoo, there’s a Bad Moon Rising, Demon, Maze, Shock Treatment, and a Robota.

Blockhead Skateboards holds a strange place in my personal skateboarding history. It is easily one of the top 4 brands that I admired in the 80’s, and yet I never actually owned one. I did own one of those Easter Island head shirts, and we interviewed Sam Cunningham in issue #5 of Skate and Annoy when it was a zine. And our buddy Swiv was on the flow team for a while. Added to the list of things I said I would do but never quite got around to is making a website for Blockhead Skateboards. Well, Dave and Ron have done fine without my help, and now they are back in business with new decks and re-issues as well. If you blinked then you missed the availability of the original Streetstyle deck cut from blanks pressed when the deck was in the final phases of production. These uncut blanks (maple and fiberglass) were almost 30 years old, and were kept in storage by a former manager of the Uncle Wiggley wood shop. Only 30 of these were made available, and not surprisingly, they sold out within a day. So, I apologize to our readers for not getting this out…

Bow before my arcane knowledge of useless skateboard related information. This Valterra Rad-isaurus looks suspiciously similar to Denver the Last Dinosaur. Both appear to be released in 1988, although I can’t tell for sure about the Valterra board, the copyright is hard to read. They both appear to be the similar species, and they both wear mohawks and sunglasses, but only the Rad-isaurus has pants. Denver is obscene! Won’t someone please think of the children? Follow me dear readers, and we will tackle the question that archeologists have been pondering for decades: “What happens when a group of pop-a-wheely, BMXer, fun-loving, skateboarding, and rock-music-listening contemporary kids open an ancient dinosaur egg?”

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.