Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Banzai Pipeline

Heavy waves with a shallow, super sharp reef break. The Pipeline break is treacherous in Hawaii.
According to the great and powerful Wikipedia: "it got its name in December 1961, when surfing movie producer Bruce Brown was driving the North Shore with California surfers Phil Edwards and Mike Diffenderfer. Brown stopped at the then-unnamed site to film Edwards catching several waves. At the time, there was a construction project on an underground pipeline on adjacent Kamehameha Highway, and Diffenderfer made the suggestion to name the break "Pipeline". The name was first used in Brown's movie Surfing Hollow Days."
By the way, Surfing Hollow Days is highly recommended viewing material!


Here's a Hawaiian warrior, charging Pipeline with no fear in his eyes.
I've been thinking about the 60's and 70's Ed Roth and Roth industries T-shirts that my dad started buying for me as a kid and how that look definitely informed my decisions when drawing characters or even designing. For better or worse, I love drawing this way.





Monday, August 5, 2013

Mongo the front pushing freak


Skateboarders today are pretty open to differing styles, fashion trends and even music choices. Gone are the days where you could spot a skater just by the clothes he wears or the music playing on his radio. Like most other subcultures, the skate scene is becoming more open to change. What distinguishes a "real" skater from a poser today, is what it should be...skills.

That being said, there is still one thing that pretty universally gets hate in the skateboarding world internationally: pushing mongo.

To push mongo, one must use their front foot to push themselves rather than their back foot. There are Youtube videos exemplifying the heinous behavior, websites devoted to hating on Mongs, and an overall bad attitude toward kids who prefer to skate this way. 

I've heard all the arguments against pushing mongo my whole life but you know what? I just won't stop. I can easily go back and forth between standard and mongo but I always prefer to push mongo in general.




available here!

To celebrate my terrible decision, I've made Mongo, the front-pushing freak. Now you too can celebrate your utterly horrible skateboarding with this mini print over at my Etsy.