I’m guessing most of you who are even a bit interested in the graphics that we ride on our boards will have heard about Sean Cliver’s book “Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art” – a 228-page, full color book which showcases over 1000 graphics from the past 30 years. And the follow up book “Disposible – The Skateboard Bible” Well, now he has joined the blogging community with some great posts so check it out right here!

» want the Disposible books? Get them right here!

Cliché Skateboards have come a long way since 1997 when Jérémie Daclin started the company up with just about nothing. 2009 and it’s a completely different ballgame with an internationally renowned team, top videos and expansion around the globe. Putting all of the history behind this amazing development is the brand new 320-page book entitled “Résumé“, written by Mackenzie Eisenhour and art directed by the ill Studio in Paris.

The high quality hardback book will be available this Christmas 2009 and around the same time a special limited series of seven decks will be hitting the market as well. Looking good and the future of this team as well – hope to get my hands on a copy of this book soon!

» Cliché Skateboards: Résumé Book and Board Series mini-site
» Cliché Skateboards website

The winter came quickly and quite harsh in Germany – most of Europe to be straight about it. Through other factors in my life I have been missing out on a few events and meeting up with people in the last couple of months but as always, you can change what you are doing can’t you?

I finally got around to checking out fellow skater and photographer friend Gerd Rieger’s website “Bailgun” again and it turns out he’s been busy as hell lately. He’s put out issue 8.2 of Bailgun Magazine which features Claus Grabke’s band and The Picturebooks on tour – great photos and a skate legend on stage, really really good!

And besides that Gerd has put together an amazing book with more than 250 pages of skateboarding, portraits, still life shots, landscapes and general snapshots…..featured skaters are: Anders Tellen, Neil Blender, Jürgen Horrwarth, Matt Grabowski, Natas Kaupas, Ben Krahn, Daniel Cardone, Renton Millar,
Bernt Jahnel, Trevor Ward, Sascha Müller and many more. Get it here while you can!

Scott Bourne, American skater gone European living, proves that skaters can read, can write, can enjoy culture other than the culture surrounding skateboarding and its lifestyle.

Scott has released with Carhartt his second publication entitled “Cheating on the Metronome” which is a 150-page book with poems and drawings. The Carhartt goes on to describe the book… “it comes in a artificial leather hard-cover, with embossed titles and a gold finishing on the side such as a page-marker. The poems that Scott typed on his old corona typewriter have been transferred and printed on a nice nicotine-yellow ecological paper. A big thank you to Luis (our printer in Badalona), who did a great job and Vanessa for all her help!!”

His first book “Dirty Ollies” was a success already and this new publication is limited to 1000 in Carhartt shops so find out where the shops are by clicking here.

On top of that Carhartt is bringing out his pro-model board with the Amicitia board series which can best be described as two friends putting their creativity into a board and booklet design. The friend-couples are Scott Bourne & Jeremy Fish (USA), Jan Kliewer & Stefan Marx (Germany), Daniel Hakansson & Stefan Narancic (Sweden). Interesting and new concept they have come up with, I think I’ll be looking into my local Carhartt stores and see if I’m lucky enough to find one of these! Check out Scott Bourne’s video part in the “Strongest of the Strange” and here’s a link to an interview with Scott by Jason Jessee.

Reading, writing, breathing and consuming skateboarding daily really allows me to find out a lot more about the subject than is seen at the first glimpse. Of course, this is nothing new as with any subject matter, the more you deal with it, the more knowledge you acquire (or should hopefully). Not that a lot of what I write about here is really knowledge. It’s mostly just information collected but the sum of information and the interconnections give it all a certain value.

No, I’m not trying to sell this. Actually, let me get to the real point behind this. Maybe you know already or maybe not, but Ed Templeton isn’t just a skater, he’s a damn good artist as well and likes to look a bit deeper than most it seems than many other people. Ed also runs a blog packed with pictures and anecdotes from his life which goes by the name of “Ed Templeton’s traffic jam on the information super-highway”. He did just mention though this past Friday that he plans to change the format as , I quote, “It’s not about haters, its about not wanting to ejaculate my life into the inter-world anymore. At least not as much or a detailed as I have been.”. We’ll see what turns up on his blog in the next few days.

Even more interesting is the fact that Ed Templeton has put together a book going by the name “Deformer”. The book will be coming out fall 2008 as a hardback with 176 pages. Here’s what the Alleged Press website has to say about the book:

“Over eleven years in the making and compiling more than 30 years worth of material, Alleged Press is pleased to announce the publication of Ed Templeton’s Deformer, a multi-media scrapbook of his upbringing in suburban Orange County, California. This beautifully designed volume, entirely art-directed by Templeton himself, gives a sun-drenched glimpse of what it is like to be young and alive in what Templeton refers to as “the suburban domestic incubator”. Deformer intertwines photographs, paintings, drawings, sketchbook pages, disciplinary letters from his grandfather and religious notes from his mother into a magnificent narrative of teenage isolation and social criticism.”

- Visit Ed Templeton’s blog
- Alleged Press website