I fondly remember when I first saw an Independent Trucks ad in the pages of Skateboarder Magazine in 1978. I was becoming a full-on skate rat and looking at the latest magazines was the only way I could see the progress going on in skateboarding outside my small town of Poway, California. Ads were equally as important as the editorial in my opinion and it was easy to distinguish the good from the bad even in those days. From the get-go, that Rick Blackhart ad of him rolling in to a tile-less pool with the small inset product shot of the truck, things looked legit. Oh, and the “They’re #*X^!!! Hot!” text was so bold at the time as we all knew the censored word was “Fucking.” Not something you printed in the pages of a skate mag for kids in 1978.
So here we are 40 years later and Independent has been consistently putting out skateboard ads the whole time. That’s insane if you ask me. Or should I say, “#*X^!!! Hot?”.
