I fell in love with skateboarding in 1999. Shortly after, I made some friends and we began shooting
photos of eachother on our skateboards. We never had any intention on sharing the photos with the world - it was just something we did to pass the time. These friendships led to starting our own skate teams, for which we would create various paraphernalia such as shirts, patches, stickers, and eventually websites where we would share our photographs. Over time our teams would fade away, but the do-it-yourself (DIY) mentality remained deeply embedded in my mind.
Various issues of Thrasher Magazine containing the 'Zine Thing' page, as well as an
entry on zines in Skateboarder Magazine's Top 100 Things About
Skateboarding article, sparked the
idea of creating my own skate zine.
Through skateboarding I developed an interest in punk rock, later succumbing to the dark side of goth, post-punk, deathrock, coldwave, etc. I quickly found that dark music, zines, and skateboarding all go hand-in-hand. This ultimately fueled my fire to
self-publish my own zine and, during the winter of 2007, the first issue of Anklepants Skate Zine was born and distributed in the frozen wasteland of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
With undoubtedly one of the worst names in the history of skateboarding (and some of the worst first issues in all zine history), Anklepants Skate Zine is a 100% black and white
publication by me. Yes, Anklepants Skate Zine has some online resources, but, in the true spirit of DIY, Anklepants Skate Zine is not and never will be an online zine.
-Mike Duthler