Walker Nightmare.

Happy Halloween!

This shape was designed by Mark Lake. The first version was one of his pro models on Walker. It was necessitated by the hot and humid weather in Florida causing problems gripping the board on airs. The weird cutouts by the front allowed a place for your hand to grab without slipping. Mark still rides a shape similar to this today, as was recently documented in a Gullwing ad. If you are way under 35 and all of this seems confusing, think about how boards evolved longer noses so you could do nollie kickflips. It's about having a functional shape for how you are trying to ride your skateboard.

Transworld - February 1989 Volume 7 Number 1

Josh Marlowe.

It's got Skull in the name so of course it gets included in Halloween week.

Skull Skates was started up in Canada back in 1978 by brothers Rick and Peter Ducommun. The team has included a number of legends over the years, such as the OG Steve Olson, David Hackett, Duane Peters, and Tod Swank. Christian Hosoi also partnered with Skull in the mid 1980s. There were several more obscure pros like Phil Esbenshade, Ray Hoover and the Godoys. They made decks for Gang Green, The Vandals, Social Distortion, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, too.

Their ads were a lot gnarlier just before the time I started to skateboard.

The photo is by Geoff Graham.

Transworld - January 1990 Volume 8 Number 1

Mark Lake.

Spooky Hall of Famer.

Mark's been skateboarding since 1967, turned pro in 1978 for Flite Skateboards, started Lake in 1987, and is still riding today. Lake Skateboards is also still in business. He's from Florida and was somewhat recently inducted into the Florida Skateboarder Hall of Fame.

Although these resemble Pushead's frantic scratchings, he did not draw the graphics.

Thrasher - August 1989 Volume 9 Number 8

Mike McGill #2.

"This gore type of blood and bullets... ya know... death, being crushed, and brains coming out the ear... that skull with the dagger through and the snot, you know what I'm saying? I'm just saying... death, gore, dismemberment, whole type of go for it type of thing. After all, that is what skateboarding is all about." - Alan Winters

Mr. Winters of Slash Skates breaks down what skateboarding is from the intro to Powell Peralta's Animal Chin. I decided to focus on board graphics that involved skulls and/or other gross things for the week. Obviously you have to start with Mike McGill's classic skull and snake graphic by VC Johnson, which was pretty much the coolest thing ever seen by most middle school eyes in the mid 1980s.

There's a new clip on Thrasher with a ton of Dan Drehobl footage. I'm guessing he is on Converse now.

RIP Lou Reed.

Transworld - June 1989 Volume 7 Number 3

Real Team 1997.

Everybody's old now.

Sometimes when little kids at the skatepark ask me how old I am, I realize I might be older than their parents. I've also been using the same set of 1/8" risers since like late 1997 or early 1998.

Casual Halloween spookiness all next week.

Slap - December 1997 Volume 6 Number 12

Quim Cardona & Keith Hufnagel.

You guys should try some doubles.

Keith flips as Quim slappys his way from a 50-50 to 5-0, I think. Huf has been pro for Real for two decades now.

Slap - November 1997 Volume 6 Number 11

Matt Field, Mark Gonzales, & Max Schaaf.

Real OGs.

Real always did a lot of ads with multiple team riders in them. Sometimes that works out well and other times the photos end up a little too small. I like the painterly feel of this one.

Slap - February 1997 Volume 6 Number 2

Mark Gonzales #15.

Frontside slider in the rain with a disgruntled security guard and a little vert action at Max's.

Slap - May 1996 Volume 5 Number 5

Joey Bast.

Sick trick.

Joey was an am for Real, turned pro for Planet Earth, and rode for Fit. He's a golf pro at a country club in Denver these days, according to a somewhat recent interview on Bob Shirt.

Slap - January 1996 Volume 5 Number 1

Mike Carroll #14.

So good for so long.

When keeping it real goes right on Monday.

Transworld - November 2003 Volume 21 Number 11

Gino Iannucci #3.

Don't call it a comeback.

I think you are required to post Gino pics when he is involved in something you've spent the week on. The Islander dropped a full part with a variety of smooth tech tricks in Yeah Right to the delight of his fans. He did a lot of switch pop shove-its and backside 360s. There were also cameos from Jason Dill and Steven Cales.

There will be a Vert Is Dead tomorrow. It might just get updated at a weird time. I'm going out of town tonight and won't be back until the afternoon so I'm not sure when I'll get around to doing this.

Thrasher - July 2002 Volume 22 Number 7

Rick McCrank #2.

Deceptacon.

Rick has a good interview in the new issue of Thrasher.

I think it's funny how baseball has adopted skateboarding's "you're doing it wrong" mentality between the old guys and the new kids.

Nobody has been at the local skatepark in the evenings as of late. The lights have been on and the weather has been really nice. I'm enjoying it. I guess parents have been making their children focus on school or something. I probably just jinxed the whole deal right there.

Transworld - March 2002 Volume 20 Number 3

Marc Johnson #7.

The Back Forty.

Top: Thrasher - June 2003 Volume 23 Number 6

Bottom: Thrasher - July 2003 Volume 23 Number 7

Brian Anderson #4.

Three D.

Girl turns twenty this year and their video Yeah Right was released in 2003 so I'm doing a fast rewind of some of the highlights of the film. Brian had been riding for Toy Machine when he got an offer to ride for Girl. He turned in a solid decade and recently left to start his own company called 3D.

Top: Transworld - February 2002 Volume 20 Number 2

Bottom: Transworld - May 2002 Volume 20 Number 5

Kris Markovich #14.

In the same way he's closed out so many videos, Markovich closes out Fashion Week. T-Bags was a family effort that moved out of the garage for a bit in the mid 1990s. Caine Gayle, Jason Ellis, and a few others were on the team.

I'll maybe do another fashion week in a couple of months. I had a list of about a dozen companies and probably only used three or so from it because I found stuff I didn't even think to look for.

I got my copy of Emerica's Made the other day. That's a really good video. It has that feel of a Tim & Henry's Pack of Lies, a short flick with no filler. Made almost counts as a Toy Machine video with Leo Romero, Colin Provost, and am Jeremy Leabres having three of the four parts to go with lone Zoo Yorker Brandon Westgate. I'm saying Colin for SOTY. You aren't supposed to be able to jump that high.

Yeah Right on Monday.

Transworld - April 1994 Volume 12 Number 4

John Montesi #3.

Handsome Boy Modeling School.

Zero Sophisto was Andy Howell's clothing company. He started it when he was on New Deal as a place to use art that didn't fit in with what the Deal was doing. The team included Josh Kalis, Jamie Thomas, Vinnie Ponte, Shiloh Greathouse, Karma Tsocheff, John Montesi, Billy Pepper, Pepe Martinez, and Kenny Hughes.

Andy and Dave Kinsey did the creative work for the ad.

Transworld - April 1995 Volume 13 Number 4

George Karr.

NOFX covering Fleetwood Mac.

George had a part in the A-1 Meats' Dancing In The Dirt video. I'm not even sure if he had a board sponsor. I was intending to watch the video again, but playoff baseball has been occupying my TV as of late. Anyway, I liked the one video part he made twenty some years ago and knew he needed to be on this site once I saw the ad.

Dirt was a clothing company out of the Tracker camp. Mario Rubalcaba was also on the team. That's about all I've got on them.

To clear up a few questions that have been raised in the comments, World Industries made Ghetto Wear. It was started back in the SMA/World Industries days. Dukes was a subdivision of Duffs, both of which were out of World. Eggplant was a hat clothing company done by some little kid with handwritten ads. The kid might have been from New Jersey. I'm not sure whatever happened to Damon Byrd. Some guy kept emailing me about having a Damon Byrd scan on here so I eventually honored his request. I think that is everything.

The photo is by Marc Hostetter.

Transworld - October 1993 Volume 11 Number 10

Tony Hawk, Ocean Howell, & Willy Santos.

Fashionable males.

Hawk: Transworld - June 1993 Volume 11 Number 6

Jeremy Traub took the photo of Willy.

Santos: Transworld - April 1993 Volume 11 Number 4

Howell: Transworld - October 1993 Volume 11 Number 10

Eight Ball & Droors.

It's a somewhat haphazard look at skateboard clothing companies from the early 1990s for the week.

Ken Block started Eightball Clothing in 1991. The name soon changed to Droors. Block partnered with Damon Way, Danny's brother, and soon launched a footwear line. This little shoe company came to be known as DC, which was an abbreviation for Droors Clothing. It wasn't named after team riders Danny Way and Colin McKay, as was the popular rumor. Droors was around for most of the 1990s. They specialized in technical athletic garments that firmly landed on the fresh side of scale. Droors was under the DC umbrella until the brand was sold to Dwindle in 1998. The clothing company lasted until 2002.

On an unrelated topic, Fred Smith's Loud Ones have some new music coming out on Beer City Skateboards & Records. They recorded a new full length album that will be released on CD sometime this year and on vinyl in 2014 for Record Store Day. There's also going to be Fred Smith Loud One deck on 1031.

Eight Ball: Transworld - March 1992 Volume 10 Number 3

Droors: Transworld - June 1992 Volume 10 Number 6