Skateboard! No3

Open publication - Free publishing - More old school

Alpine Sports Adverts

Right from issue one of Skateboard! (UK) in August 1977 Alpine Sports dominated with their amazing 5 to 6 page run of ads.

Perhaps borrowing a leaf from the Val Surf ads in Skateboarder (USA) the Alpine ads featured all your dreams set ups along with nice touches such as wheels shown in ‘actual size’. This was the glossy side of Skateboarding.

After Skateboard! folded in 1979 Alpine was still keeping Skating alive with a regular newsletter edited by Tim Leighton-Boyce who went on to edit RAD (UK).

The Quarterly Skateboarder

The Quarterly Skateboarder (USA) Winter 1964 - October 1965

The original and very first Skateboard magazine started by Surfer publications in 1964 - Editor John Severson. It started life as The Quarterly Skateboarder but abbreviated to just Skateboarder Magazine from Issue 3. The magazine only ran for four issues but was later resurrected in the 1970's as Skateboarder, again by Surfer Magazine.

In his first editorial John Severson wrote: Today's skateboarders are founders in this sport - they're pioneers - they are the first. There is no history in Skateboarding - its being made now - by you. The sport is being molded and we believe that doing the right thing now will lead to a bright future for the sport. Already there are storm clouds on the horizon with opponents of the sport talking about ban and restriction.

Unfortunately those storm clouds gathered and due to poor quality equipment (Steel and Clay wheels) which lead to numerous accidents, many American cities banned skateboarding and by Christmas 1965 Skateboarding had died and along with it The Quarterly Skateboarder.

Big Brother

Big Brother (USA) 1992 What can you say about Big Brother - rather a lot I suspect. At the end of the 1980's Steve Rocco started to shake up the skateboard industry with the creation of World Industries - the start of the independent skateboard companies and the big shift to street. Transworld wouldn't run one of Steve's ads - so he ran a two page ad asking readers what he should do - they said start your own magazine - so he did.

Issue one was deemed to be a failure by Rocco and was given away with a warning sticker 'warning: test copy. Due to the fact that no-one here had any idea what in the hell they were doing this issue has been declared a total failure. Therefore we have decide to give it away for free'.

Early writers included Sean Cliver, Earl Parker (Thomas Schmidt), Jeff Tremaine, Marc Mckee, Mike Ballard and Pat Canale - amongst others.

The magazine soon established itself at the cutting edge of skateboarding - love it or loath it everyone read it. Issues 1 to 8 were full of Rocco's marketing gimmicks; No2 came in an extra large format, No3 was spiral bound, No5 came with trading cards, No6 came in a serial box, No7 had eight different covers and No8 came with an audio tape. After No8 Rocco had no more direct involvement in BB but allowed it to continue on.

Content was highly controversial and no subject was taboo, as well as skating there was a lot of sex, nudity, drugs and rock n roll not to mention religion and midgets. Articles such as 'how to kill yourself' in No3 and 'field trip to Hustler' in No9 gained the magazine 'outraged' media exposure and a spot on several news broadcasts. Despite all of this the mag was instrumental in publishing video sequences of the newest tricks and covered many rising street skaters. It's coverage of skating was very much 'tell it how we see it' - not always the policy of other magazines. As with World Industries the magazine caught the feel of the times.

Never really financially viable and lacking good distribution (it only ever ran to monthly print runs of 20,000 to 30,000) the magazine soon found itself in a world of debt. By a bizarre coincidence - given the accusations of BB being a front for running pornography - Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler, ended up buying the magazine in March 1997 as part of a deal which included Blunt snowboarding magazine. If anything, the magazine toned down under its new ownership. In one of the most bizarre episodes of the magazine's history, the subscriber list for Big Brother got mixed up with one of Larry Flynt's hardcore magazines - Taboo. Subscribers were sent pornography, and those who subscribed to Taboo got a skate magazine - see letter below. However, in 2004 the magazine was unexpectedly dropped by Larry Flynt publications.