metamorpho and other tales to astonish

You know, it's always a crapshoot when it comes to these posts. I mean, in theory I know where they ultimately have to end, but generally only have a vague notion of how to start and practically no idea what's going to happen betwixt… and I have a sneaky suspicion the taint on this one is about to get extremely muddied indeed. So, let’s just jump right in and get it on with Rex Mason, aka Metamorpho, a lesser known hero sprung from the wackiest substrate of DC Comics in 1964.

In a brave, bold, and somewhat sheepish admission, I'll be the first to acknowledge that my lack of a definable art style comes from a rudimentary ability to absorb and take on the properties of other artists. Unfortunately, my origin story is not so fantastic as that of Rex, a run-of-the-mill archeologist who only became Metamorpho after touching some random ass Egyptian artifact called the "Orb of Ra" that physically cursed him with the power to transmute into different elemental and/or chemical compounds to suit whatever his super needs may be [1]. Whereas me, I started out in grade school by trying to replicate the bird paintings of John James Audubon and the autographs of professional baseball players printed on the face side of Topps trading cards [2]. By middle school, I'd moved on from such amateur forgery operations to more puerile artistic pursuits by training my eye-hand-coordination to reproduce the comic book illustrations of George Perez, Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, and Steve Rude from their respective work on The New Teen Titans, The Uncanny X-Men, and Nexus.

My true inspirational salvation came in high school, though, when I discovered skateboarding and the Holy Trinity of VCJ, Pushead, and Jim Phillips. Almost immediately thereafter my art projects became Frankenstein-like experiments where I’d attempt to sew all three disparate styles into a single illustration at once. And while these hybrid moments may not have been a good aesthetic thing (read: they most definitely were not), they did ultimately serve to get me the hell out of Wisconsin and into the skate industry of Southern California come January of 1989. So, all’s well that ends well—or starts, I guess.

So yes, my artistic schizophrenia took professional root at Powell Peralta when I was all of 19-years-old and shell-shocked to find myself instantly thrust into the formidable pole position abandoned by VCJ. Still, there was no escaping the indelible legacy he'd etched upon the brand, and considering I revered the very scratchboard he worked upon it’s no surprise that I attempted to walk in the shadow of his line work on several graphic occasions throughout the coming years of employment. This isn’t to say everything I managed to get approved and printed on a board looked like a pale ghost of VCJ, but I certainly did have my moments. I do believe George Powell appreciated this chameleon-like ability of mine, though, as he did liken me to a "sponge” on one complimentary instance during a "Design Review" meeting.

However, like many other young and impressionable skaters circa 1990–1991, I’d also simultaneously fallen in love with the fuck-all ads, graphics, and antics coming out of World Industries. Worse yet, I’d even become acquainted with Steve Rocco in a friendly manner through Per Welinder, the former Bones Brigade freestyle/streetstyle pro who now worked in the newly formed Marketing Group at Powell. Per still actively skated, so we'd often meet up in Santa Barbara parking lots after work and hang out on a regular basis. Eventually this lead to his inviting me along on "illicit" weekend trips down to visit Rocco in the South Bay of LA, where we'd often cruise out to Catalina Island on The Guppy, Rocco's 30-foot Sea-Ray docked at the Redondo Beach King Harbor. (On occasion, '80s legend and Liberty founder Mike Smith would also join in on these jaunts with his own boat christened The Aquaman: Tales to Astonish—a very trivial detail that is wholly inconsequential to this post other than its being half the inspiration for the nonsensical title.) Anyway, it was all but impossible for Porifera me not to absorb some of Rocco's raucous traits on these ridiculously fun trips [3], many of which would later display themselves in a shitty, petulant attitude during the ensuing work weeks. So yes, in due time I would indeed find my cynical ass canned from Powell Peralta on "Black Tuesday" in November 1991.

Fortunately, Rocco called up and hired me a week later. VCJ's influence obviously had no place in what the World camp was putting out into the marketplace, so I was now under the gun to really find myself as an artist—and fast. Especially since I would be working side-by-side with Marc McKee who had become the new gold standard in skate graphics. Arguably, I'd only begun to find my sea legs in those last tumultuous months at Powell, but now, under the big top of Rocco's high profile circus, it really was a sink or swim task to jump agilely from graphic to graphic, morphing my style to whatever idea came down the pike, be it outright appropriation or entirely original material [4]. It's probably worth noting that I also began moonlighting on Big Brother magazine soon after its inception in 1992, and it didn't take long before I'd assimilated to many of the absurd sensibilities and design aesthetics of Jeff Tremaine, the mag's Art/Editorial Director whom I worked closely with during those uniquely chaotic years at World Industries. Do I suffer from a Borderline Personality Disorder? Hush now. Best not dwell on such psychological rabbit holes.

More to the point of this whole post, my art style really became a fractured mess once I left World Industries in 1997 to take up roost in the art department at Birdhouse where Jeremy Klein called the design shots. Whatever amount of artistic ego I'd amassed in the early '90s, I simply let it all go to jive with the new quarterly catalog mentality where a board graphic basically had to come together in a week or less from conception to production-ready art—a relative feat at times considering Klein was a fan of both the old "Powell-style" art and whatever I'd done at World Industries. So, between the never ending parade of Birdhouse and Hook-Ups boards, my art became increasingly indefinable and nameless over the next decade. Seriously, three of my graphics could be chosen at random from that span of time and one would easily assume they were all done by different artists—none of them being me!

When I did finally walk away from Blitz Distribution in 2007, my indistinguishable style may not have enabled me to become an internationally recognized beautiful loser but it did leave me as a Metamorpho of illustration, more or less ready-made for virtually any freelance gig to come my way—provided it was of long and skinny proportions, that is, because anything outside of a Bandaid template would instantly make my head spin and leave me shook. But in the years of freelance feast or famine that lead up to the advent of Paisley in 2015, it wasn't at all unusual for companies to hit me up and cherry pick an era of skate art to fit their fancy, all of which served to perpetuate my styleless style. Now, with StrangeLove, it's just as easy for me to slip through these sliding doors of my past, time traveling through my various incarnations as an illustrator.

So, what do any of these meandering trips down memory lane have to do with where we are in the here and now? Well, as I've previously mentioned elsewhere, StrangeLove can oftentimes be considered a celebration of skateboard history and a recent event involving a former rider, Jake Braun, inspired a reactionary series that touches not only specific elements from my past, but those from skateboarding in general—in particular, the time in 1985 when John Lucero quit Madrid to ride for Schmitt Stix. Typically such defections would bring an immediate halt to the production of any more boards, but instead of permanently shelving Lucero's model Madrid later stripped off his name on the graphic, replaced it with "X-Teamrider," and continued to sell the shit out of the popular jack-in-the-box jester design that John himself had created—a fairly punk move that may or may not have been inspired by Powell Peralta, who had already normalized such a practice by transmuting the iconic Ray "Bones" Rodriguez graphic into a generic "Skull & Sword" team model [5]. Granted, it wasn't like Ray had gone on to seriously pursue his professional career elsewhere, nor did he have an actual hand in creating the graphic, but so it goes in skateboarding. Anyway, John went on to have the last laugh, seeing as he had two of the best-selling skateboards in the '80s with his Schmitt Stix "X1" and "X2" pro models. Royalties for days!

All that said, for better, worse, or otherwise, I'll let Paula Abdul wrap things up. Buried within the pages of Big Brother #4, published on the cusp of 1992–1993, is an article in the Potpourri section entitled "Vibeology" where Paula breaks down all that need be said about our latest pro series and its accompanying "Retired Rider" model. I will say, though, that the last of the digs, a "jab," is the one that has always stuck with me through the years, as it really is just a "gentle reminder that none of us are perfect." The end. —Sean Cliver

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1. I'm not sure why I actually went with Metamorpho instead of Rogue from The Uncanny X-Men… her powers of absorption may have made for a much more apropos metaphor, but I just couldn't liken myself to a sassy Southern gal.

2. This begs the question: Did I aspire to become a forger? No, not really, but I have had to "fill in" for MIA members of the Jackass cast in the past when an emergency autograph or two was needed. So, in the event you acquired a signed cast photo circa 2007–2010, hi, I'm Steve-O.

3. The skateboard industry of the '80s was a far different insular beast than it is nowadays. Back then, there was still an "above the line" caste system where certain individuals held considerable respect, authority, and sway in a damn near Illuminati way. Oftentimes this Inner Circle could be seen standing off to the side at contests and ASR trade show gatherings, talking amongst themselves about what you were not privileged to know unless expressly invited into these elite conversations [6]. Rocco, on the other hand, was still regarded as a troublemaking interloper in 1989 and tolerated at best—no one took him all that seriously and he definitely wasn't perceived as a threat to the Established Order. So, it's really no surprise that all of the younger upstarts in skating then gravitated toward his whimsical Pied Piper tune, because he was essentially a kid, just like them, with a mischievous love for stirring things up and having fun, sharing all the toys of his success in the process. Heck, if not for this impish generosity of his, I never would've experienced many of the things in life that I have.

4. Let me be clear: I had my flops at World Industries that first year, a few of which I won't even mention just so they stay swept under the rug of pre-internet history. The only one I am able to really laugh about still is the godawful Travelodge bear rip-off I'd been asked to do for Chico and did it SO BADLY that Rocco flipped out when he saw it in the warehouse—it was THAT BAD. All I can say in my defense is that I must have been deep in the weeds on a slick bottom painting at the time and simply phoned this particular request in while struggling to finish the other graphic. Considering the "history" at the Travelodge in Hermosa Beach that inspired Chico's idea, I really could have made a much more entertaining graphic out of it.

5. To be fair, G&S did the same with Gator's second model after he quit to ride for Vision in 1984, but the Q*bert-inspired "Foil Tail" graphic  just doesn't have the same je nais se quoi as the Ray Bones.

6. To this day I'm still fascinated by the figureheads of the '80s, but mostly CR Stecyk III, whose enigmatic and influential fingerprints were all over the industry from NorCal to CenCal and SoCal.