While I don't believe that heading is "click bait" per se, it's also incredibly misleading in that this has nothing to do with the Christmas season whatsoever (aside from being posted within the yuletide window). What it is, however, could be considered a Casey Kasem countdown of our adventures in advertising this past year. And while 12 would have been a nice round number, what with there being 12 months in a year and all, we actually placed 16 ads between both Thrasher and Closer Skateboarding mags. Well, there's actually a couple more ads than that, but the additional two went out into the international printed waters and both were pretty derivative of ads placed elsewhere (give or take some dimensional readjustments for the metric pixel system). Not that you needed to know any of that, but I do like to come correct as possible.
Before riffling through all the ads, though, I'd like to address a few things. First and foremost that prior to StrangeLove I didn't really have a lot of graphic design experience. I would like to say none, in fact, but I did dabble in the Big Brother mag layouts once upon a QuarkXPress time. Even then, I’m mostly talking about basic blocks of color with a headline, copy, and an image or two, because Jeff Tremaine didn't trust my skills outside of the Potpourri and News sections. And rightly so. I didn't have any. My design sense was strictly remedial sidebar material. But now, since it's just Nick and I behind the plastic shower curtain here at StrangeLove—and me being the only one with an iota of graphic design wherewithal—I've had to blunder my way pell-mell through the Adobe Creative Suite to figure a lot of shit out on the fly and almost always under duress. And with everything I need to do graphic-wise, e.g. actually drawing shit, I’ve long been content to stick to a standard layout formula—think New Deal when they first started out being all black-white-and-yellow—even though I knew it was getting stale. And everyone knows that's a Cardinal Sin in skateboarding unless a fish is tacked onto the end of that dreaded word.
So, this year, you may have noticed a change. Or maybe not. Do you even look at skateboard magazines? Sounds silly to ask, but times have changed, print hits generationally different now. We even had one person of considerable note ask why we bother placing ads in magazines, which struck me to the very core of my heart. I mean, I still have very fond, near palpable memories of flipping through the copies of Thrasher, circa 1986–1987, that I'd smuggle into high school to read in the library at lunch or during study halls, my fingers smudged black from the newsprint pages. And how exciting was it to wait and see what advertising shenanigans Rocco got up to each and every month, circa 1988–1991! Not to mention my lengthy editorial stint in the trenches on Big Brother, circa 1992–2000, when print became my second professional home away from the art table. Ultimately, though, the magazines are a lasting, physical document of the culture, mapping out the ever-changing topography of faces and places in skateboarding, and I not only wanted to support that but be an active participant in it as well. All that said, yes, it was time for a change ad-wise. Even if those pesky delivery deadlines tend to creep up with the worst-possible-pants-down timing.
Lastly, I've often remarked that StrangeLove isn't your average skate company. And it's not. But it also is. We make skateboards. We sponsor skateboarders. We support skateboarding. Sure, we may go about it in a rather unorthodox manner at times, often in ways that can rub some the wrong way or may even possibly work against us, but what's the point of being "just another skateboard company" when everyone already says there's way too many in the first place? So, we voice opinions. We take stands. We heart the culture that has always made skateboarding the incredibly unique pastime it is renowned to be. And with that, here's the way we appeared in print in 2025 with bonus commentary tracks.
Magazines are cover dated into the future for newsstand reasons I've never fully understood. Why is a magazine dated March 2025 when it comes out in January? Fuck if I know, but it always wreaks havoc with our production and marketing schedules (hahaha... I say this like they even exist), and it feels like every ad we place in Thrasher is a grenade just lobbed in the general direction of a month or two when we hope to release a certain product. Sometimes we hit, sometimes we miss, but I do think this ad featuring Todd Bratrud's "Travis" and "Iris" two-pack was somewhere in the timely ballpark of Valentine’s Day.
Back in the '80s it wasn't uncommon to see a company like Schmitt Stix or Powell Peralta run an ad boasting how their employees skated. Propaganda of a sort, I guess, but it championed the little guy and those good vibes can go a nice, long way. I mean, who doesn't want to see themselves printed in a skate mag? Well, Goofy Boy, for one, I suppose, but he was an anomaly who became the inadvertent voice of an unfashionable generation. Anyway, this particular ad for Thrasher went out to Nick Matlin, who was assisting in managing our team at the time, and may or may not have transpired because the majority of our riders were either living in real winter conditions or hampered by injuries, thus making photos in very short supply (and by that I mean absolutely none whatsoever).
Switching both gears and dimensions, we now come to our ad placed in the first quarterly issue of Closer Skateboarding mag. More importantly, though, it's a prime example of our not knowing when a board release will actually take place. I mean, I think we had every intention of putting this Don Pendleton board out in the first quarter of the year, but it was also tied to the production of the Skateboard Americana zine that ended up taking far longer to assemble than anticipated. Anyway, much like the tagline from the ad suggests, StrangeLove can indeed be the place where fantasies go to die, and being a well oiled company machine may well be one of those. To that end, we are but two humans. We fall. We get it up. And we try to remember there's always another day to fuck up all over again.
Bouncing back to the monthly pages of Thrasher, we happily introduced our latest addition to the team, Reef Orlando, with a quip about vertical integration. If you haven't seen him skate yet, I highly recommend you follow him on Instagram. Reef's technical street-lip antics at speed (and in lines!) remind me of the early days of the '90s when Colin McKay was redefining the vertical medium from a street perspective.
I always love when Max Murphy sends a photo our way, because: A) I know it's going to involve some bit of sorcery from the crusty streets of Milwaukee, WI; and B) It just tickles the Wisconsinite in me to be able to show off the state in the pages of Thrasher.
Oh boy! Here we go. Both Nick and I were fans of Don's old "Paranoia or Prophecy" series for Alien Workshop, circa 2001, so we asked if he'd be interested in coming up with something in the same vein. This is what he came back with for us, and it was perfect. Well, maybe not to some, we've got several blocked accounts to prove it, but as someone who absolutely loved Mike Judge's prescient Idiocracy (2006) this series could not have been more on point. Hence my graphic design spoof of a promotional poster used for the aforementioned film to fulfill a Thrasher deadline.
As it went in Thrasher so it went in Closer. Kind of. I mean, similar but different? This alternate promotional ad for the “Prophecy or Idiocracy?” series leaned heavily into Don’s graphic assets, where I essentially used them as clip art. Incidentally, we do have a philosophy when it comes to dividing up ads between the two very different publications and audiences, but that’s also proprietary marketing information and that’s all I’ll sardonically say about that.
Okay, so maybe I lapsed back into the “Classic Coke” formula for another issue of
Thrasher, but this one also came together at the last drop dead minute for a variety of reasons. You can go read about many of them (and Paula Abdul!)
here, but what really made me happy about this ad was seeing Monica back on board after she went through a serious knee operation last year and endured months and months of physical therapy to do so.
I know one probably shouldn’t admit such things, but flying by the seat of our pants and reacting to situations as they present themselves is but one of our secret sauces. It does, however, come back to bite us on the ass, as we accidentally backed ourselves into a social commentary corner with not one, not two, but
three tentpole releases this year. Some would argue that’s three too many, but so it goes. It has been a year, though, and that may be the understatement of the century—or at least so far, seeing as we’re only a quarter of the way into it. Jesus. Anyway, this series turned out to be controversial in many more ways than one, both inside and out, but having recently looked at these boards in hand I will steadfastly stand by my guns that it's a damn solid set. But look, this is another one
best read in long form, seeing as these blurbs are supposed to be all about love and print. So, just look at that nifty black-on-black swipe of Albrecht Dürer’s four horsemen from
The Apocalypse for background purposes in the pages of
Thrasher. Just another fine instance of hopping fences for the culture, yo.
With all the heaviness of the year even I was like, hey, let’s lighten the mood and enjoy what’s left of summer. So, we reimagined ourselves as a hot shit boogie board company in the rear end pages of Thrasher. Did anyone notice? No idea. We rarely ever hear any feedback about our ads. Well, right up until the next one, that is.
Unfamiliar with this one? That’s because it never ran anywhere. It is, in fact, the original nixed one for Closer that I would only later allude to in social media posts but never dare share because shit was already more confusing than it needed to be. Anyway, this ad was submitted at the very last second, so when it came back stamped REJECTED by Jaime Owens we almost skipped advertising in the issue altogether. However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself over the years, it’s that I don’t react well to the word NO. If anything, it always gets my impish goat, and I quickly turned around this next ad utilizing a very random photo I’d taken at San Diego Comic Con, circa 2009…
At most, I assumed Jaime was gonna get a little chuckle out of it and politely decline to run this one as well. To his credit, though, he chuckled and chose to run it in Closer. Sure, he may have quoted Jeff Spicoli while doing so, but good on him. My only regret is that you can't include footnotes in magazines, because a little more context may not have been a bad thing [1], especially when you're citing history from 1991. Later on, once I shared the ad on social media, one astute commenter said it sounded like Rocco had written the copy. All I could do was reply that the fruit hadn't fallen far from the tree.
In all fairness to Jaime, we submitted the very same “American History” ad above to Thrasher only to have it kicked it back as well but with the additional note there was a certain vagueness to it that could be misconstrued and taken in an unintended way. And I had to agree. Sometimes when you're too close to something you can’t always see what others do. So, I took a breath, approached the concept from a different angle, and leaned into some of the historical material from the Skateboard Americana zine to provide a better point of view. Sure enough, that did the trick and everything was seen fit to print. This was also the very first ad of ours to ever elicit any kind of unsolicited feedback from readers—and positively so—so win-win!
Due to circumstances beyond our control, including but not limited to shake ups in the team roster throughout the year, skate photo options were slim to none heading into fall with “none” being the most operative word. Hence the need for me to reach back into my bag of tricks, aka my ass, to pull out something as the extended deadline for Thrasher was already crashing down upon me. So, into my photo archives I dove, where I plucked out a photo I’d taken on the Big Brother Midwest Tour in ‘94, and, for better or worse, which may as well be the StrangeLove motto, barfed out a mushroom cloud of absurdities to accompany the image. Make of it what you will.
This was an interactive experiment I whipped together since Nick didn’t have any particular creative directions in mind for me. Earlier in the month, however, he’d shared photos of some recent vintage zine acquisitions he'd made, so with those in mind—coupled with our recent publication of the
Skateboard Americana zine—I guess I had DIY on the brain. But I’ve always loved the zine culture of the ‘80s, so, if anything, this was a "love letter" to that period (albeit a paid one). I was particularly proud of the Smith-Corona line, but no surprise considering I’ve always had a soft spot for self-deprecation in the most public manner possible, which, in this case, would be the longest running skateboard publication in history,
Thrasher Magazine.
Our final ad for Closer hasn’t even come out yet [3], so I guess this is a bit like finding out what you’re getting for Christmas before it’s even presented to you on the day? Hey! It’s a Christmas reference. Hot damn. Maybe that title wasn’t so misleading after all. Anyway, a tease of Todd Bratrud things to come in 2026.
This issue of Thrasher is hitting shops and subscribers now, and our ad not only doubles but triples down on references to the historical past. One being the old Powell Peralta video from 1988, Public Domain, which in itself referenced a Los Angeles printing powerhouse that has since, like many great things, gone the way of the dodo. Long live the screen printed memory of the late great Colby Poster Co.! Oh, and lastly, the more commonly and well known definition of “public domain,” where copyrights no longer hold legal weight after 95 years. Okay, there’s a lot more technicalities to it than just that, but for our purposes it’s no holes barred. Anyway, coming soon-ish (don’t forget about that whole fictitious production and marketing schedule I mentioned earlier [4]). —Sean Cliver
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1. Nice ad! This isn’t the first time you’ve seen this image in the StrangeLove word cemetery, but I just wanted to reiterate how great it would have been to add this footnote somewhere in Closer.
2. I have absolutely no idea if anyone ever sent any zines to the warehouse. Nick never mentioned anything, so I assume not? Guess that’s why they call it the Digital Age now.
3. Well, shit. I just received the latest issue of Closer today, but fuck it. It is what it is at this point, aside from this last second footnote.
4. Sorry, I just can’t help myself, even though I know it can be rather uncomfortable for others—friends, lovers, and business partners included. My formative years of professional "behavior modeling" took place under Steve Rocco at World Industries and then the Serengeti Plain of Big Brother (which of course begat Jackass), where “behind the scenes” was always part and parcel of the end product. An end product, mind you, that lampooned all of the absurdity that is typically never ever revealed to the public, let alone openly boasted about. Look, go read almost any “cover story” in the pages of Big Brother and you’ll see what I mean [5]. There’s a reason the words dumb, stupid, and idiots are synonymous with the mag.
5. Here, I'll tack one on here just for fun from Big Brother Issue 666, aka 15, featuring the infamous Steve Olson "Burning Bibles" cover…
