Thrasher Magazine

Neil Blender is the original skateboard artist; copied by many but never matched for his joyful, tweaked originality. Here's the stories behind some of his most beloved boards.

1   G&S, 1982 (THREE GUYS ON RAMP)
This was my first board. Steve Cathey says, “I want to turn you and Billy [Ruff] pro,” and I’m, like, “Fuck.” He goes, “We need a board shape. What do you want?” I’m, like, “I don’t know. I don’t even know.” And he’s all, “Well, what do you like?” I’m like, “The Tom Inouye board. I want the cut away.” All the pictures of Inouye were so cool and we were already riding side cuts all the time. This was basically the side cut without it bulging back out at the tail. I tell him, “Just do the side cut and make it go straight back.” They sent me four orange ones and they were sick! Then people were saying the shape looked like a dick. Well, of course, ‘cause the wide part is all up front. For the graphics, Steve Cathey, he goes, “Well, you draw. Why don’t you draw something for it?” I’m, like, “Really?” So I sent this little drawing in—it was in Bic pen, too, so the lines were really tiny but I figured, “Oh, they’ll blow it up.” And then they sent me the boards and it was the tiniest, worst drawing. They printed it exactly like I sent it to them on that little piece of paper. I was laughing about it like, “Really? This is how it works?” It was like, “Man. What do I do now?”

2   G&S, 1984 (SNAKE)
At the time Gator’s G&S board was selling the most and they were, like, “Oh yeah, you gotta do something, man. Your last graphics didn’t sell.” At the time he had these Q-Bert graphics. It was, like, 3-D. It was pretty cool looking, pretty simple and I’m thinking, “People must be buying that just because it’s a repeating pattern.” I just thought this up, dude. It was like, “Yep. Has to be that. I need something with a lot of the same thing.” So I drew the lattice thinking, “Well, there’s a repeating pattern right there,” and then I got to draw the lettering and then I just gave up. I gave it to the art girl at the time, Lynn Rudtke, like, “You can finish this. I wanted a snake coming through this.” She’s like, “Oh, okay.” She drew up the snake and if you look closely you can tell she thickened up all the lines, too. That one never sold good either. The repeating pattern theory was out the fuckin’ window.


3   G&S, 1984 (ROCKING DOG #1)
I was just trying to draw something that looked different. I still like the rocking dog. Seriously, they made like 200 of these. Skating was dead. They’re, like, “Were not selling any boards!” It’s, like, “Who cares? I’m just trying to skate.”

4   G&S, 1985 (ROCKING DOG #2)
It’s not as good of a dog as the first one. They had changed the mold and I just cut the things off—the dickhead or whatever. The nose started getting bigger because  Christian Hosoi was the guy to bring us the reality of having more nose. Doing body jars, doing airs to tail like you would not believe. We’re just like, “Whoah.” And he had that rad hammerhead. I remember looking at his board and going, “Oh well. Those weird shapes and bumps look kind of stupid but I like his tail.” That’s why the tail started to flair out on this one. I tried to copy his tail a little bit and then just make it go clean and smooth and have some more nose. And then we just stayed with this shape the whole time.

5   G&S, 1986 (COFFEE BREAK)
This is the one people want to talk about. Look at that shape. It’s horrible, dude. If I saw this right now I would walk away. I think it’s just a timing thing of kids being born and getting to a certain age to want something. And so that board started selling a lot. Everyone was hyped and they were printing it up left and right. I remember getting a check for five grand a month for that. I saved up a bunch of money. Not a bunch but like 18 grand. I put a down payment on a house in Anaheim with this one. So I fuckin’ owned a house for a little while and made a ramp in the backyard; did some backside ollies. All the money I saved was from that board and then the money went down. Things didn’t sell good. People weren’t interested in G&S after, like, ‘87 I don’t think.


6   G&S, 1987 (FIBRELITE)
They’re, like, “We’ve got these new boards made out of foam,” and I’m thinking, “Foam and fiberglass? That’s for a surfboard, dude, not skateboards.” We rode ‘em for one ad and that was it. We rode if for that day only. They shot Chris Miller and I do doubles on these things. We had never done doubles. That was the only doubles in our life. So stupid. It felt kind of good for like 15 minutes, maybe a half an hour, and then all of a sudden you’d come down for a landing and BAM—the tail would just snap and you’d go across the flat bottom.


7   G&S, 1988 (NASH DRIVING)
We were driving to Del Mar one day and Eric Nash was driving his Mustang 5.0 and was all hyped and I’m hyped, like, “I’m gonna draw him.” I was surprised they printed it because the drawing was probably four-by-six inches and it’s all sketchy and just kind of shitty. It’s also the first time that I put a small graphic up front so I was like, “Alright.”

8   Alien Workshop, 1991 (JAMES)
We were all cracking up over the names James. So it’s James, James 2, Jimmy and Don. It means nothing whatsoever; just to tweak your mind a little bit. This nose is good, for sure, though—like a Miller Schmitt Stix.

9   Alien Workshop, 1991 (SPEAKERS)
This was my favorite Alien board because it’s just a pair of L 112s and we fuckin’ mixed that orange ink just to do that tiny little JBL sticker on there. It’s so rad. Mike Hill printed these up and it’s a line screen, which is sick when you look close up.

10   Transportation Unit, 2015
These are my first graphics, finally redone correctly, instead of with a Bic pen. I’d skate this for the rest of my life. It’s got a better concave. It’s a better shape and it’s got the right width for your foot area. May have finally gotten it right.

Board photos courtesy of The Disposable Skateboard Bible (Gingko Press)