Apparently in the world of skateboarding there are these things called magazines, and in particular, the longest running skateboard magazine called “Thrasher” is still a thing. Why on earth would Skate and Annoy link to Thrasher? We like to help out the little guys. Yuk, yuk, yuk… You should definitely check out the Kevin Thatcher interview from the January print issue that just went online. Hey kids, Kevin was a name once synonymous with Thrasher. It seemed inconceivable that there would ever be a Thrasher magazine without him, but to hear him tell it, it was definitely a group effort. Learn about the gory, glory days of mechanical paste ups before everything became Wild Riders of Keyboards… Photo: Self described Pro-for-5-minutes Kevin Thatcher in the Winchester halfpipe in 1978, by Gary Medeiros as seen at Tunnel Skateboards.

Two skateboard shops from Wales, Dave Friar’s Surf Shop and the Welsh Skateboard Centre. Then there’s Mercury Flyer air freighted skateboards direct from the USA, and the Superb Sitco Rocket.

I’m trying to decide how much retouching and color correcting to tackle in the Vintage Skateboard Magazine Advert Gallery. Here’s a comparison for this Zephyr skateboards ad from 1975. Not surprisingly, the forty year old pages are discolored with age. Do you prefer the scanned image with minimal color correction, or the adjusted version that is closer to what the page originally looked like but has a slightly artificial look to it? There’s an enlargement to compare after the jump, but really this is just an excuse to get you to check out Zephyr Skateboards: Young dudes in heavy spots.

Since we’re talking about Jake Phelps, I thought I’d put up this photo I found in the June 1980 issue of Skateboarder, just a few short months before it became Action Now. I’ve got a September 1980 issue of Action Now, but I don’t know if it was the first. The June issue of Skateboarder has an ad saying a new type of action magazine was coming soon. In any case, this is none other than Kevin Thatcher, the original editor of Thrasher Magazine, appearing in one of the last issues of a magazine whose demise would soon find him employed making a replacement. Kevin once gave me an invaluable photography tip scribbled on note with a batch of negatives he sent back to me: “Use a faster shutter speed and your shots won’t be so blurry. – K.T.” I think of him every time my shutter speed dial slips below 1/400. I’ve looked through a few 1980 issues of Skateboarder, and they all have BMX coverage in them at that point already. While I was searching for an image of the June 1980 cover, I stumbled on the web site of the original photographer, Ted Terrebonne. Ted has 144…