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.
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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?
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As seen on Facebook Marketplace, going for an absurd price ($600) even if it is from 1996. The tombstone covers up most of the mummy’s skateboard so you barely notice it. Cardboard, 47 inches tall and the eyes light up. Boo!
Witness the Hot Wheels Skate Flush & Go Skate Bowl from Mattel. From that fisheye lens shot you’d think this must be 3 feet across, but it’s not. Man, I’m really having to restrain myself from making poop jokes in this post… The set comes with one board and one pair of fnigerboarding shoes and lists for about $35. What’s the size of a Hot Wheels fingerboard compared to a Tech Deck? Has the fnigerboarding industry sat down together for a roundtable discussion on scale nomenclature or was there already an ISO standard? Who cares? This fingerboard play set is the… (self control)!
– Thanks to Josh Baker for the tip!
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Way back in August I texted my friend Mark Conahan to ask him if he’d like to go to a newish skatepark that opened in June that was about a half hour away. Mark instead suggested we go to one that neither of us had been to, a brand new park in Sandy, Oregon that was maybe 45 minutes away. I drive through Sandy on the way to Mt Hood several times a year, and I didn’t even know they had a skatepark. A hurried web search turned up the park district page with exactly one picture showing a close cropped view of a kid skating. It didn’t look too impressive but it did appear the park was finished so I figured why not check it out? Three of us loaded up the car and drove out there. When we pull up we found the the entire thing under construction! There’s no mention of this anywhere on the parks page. In fact the new park is due to open sometime in November (Update: Nov 2nd!) and the page still isn’t updated. We nosed around a little, took some pics, and then decided to check out the town’s local skate shop since we were already out there. The new park looks like it’s going to big and fun, and BDK Boardshop turned out to be quite a surprise!
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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.
The Volcano ( or Le Volcan as it is named in France, where it resides) was originally designed by Oscar Niemeyer and opened in 1982. These pictures are from Atelier Cambium, a firm involved in an extensive remodeling project that looks like it involved digging up everything underneath and around it in order to reimagine the space. At first glance it looks like a fun skate spot, although you’ll need big soft wheels to navigate some of the bricked areas. However, If you look closer you can see they have applied a short railing in certain areas to keep people off the walls. Why they want people off the walls? Some will likely say insurance and liability reasons, although I don’t know how big of a problem that is in the EU. I suspect it’s in order to keep the space from being used in more creative ways that tend to annoy the stuffed shirts.
Source: Atelier Cambium
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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
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