Category: Streetwear

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nc17 Streetwear

nc17, also known as nc-seventeen, was a counterculture streetwear company in business during the 1990’s and early 2000’s and they printed their designs on tee’s and stickers. nc17 had a few different styles – drug or sex themed brand parodies (like THC), movie or TV spoofs (like Serial Killer), double entendre, and social commentary. nc17 had some very original ideas and I believe that they were the streetwear pioneer of the double entendre that walks the line between obscene and misunderstood.

I am always looking to expand this article with more information and art. If anyone out there has some information or history that they can share about the nc17 company, please reach out to me on Twitter (@CPXART). Also, a large part of this hobby of collecting vintage streetwear stickers and prints, is the hunt. A lot of these original stickers are difficult to find and therefore I will shamelessly use this platform to solicit pieces missing from my collection. If you have nc17 stickers (no reprint), that you are willing to part with, and that I do not already have in the image slider below, I am interested in purchasing them for a fair market price. Please direct message me on Twitter (@CPXART) so we can make a deal. It will also benefit the visitors to this site to see more examples of this underappreciated art in one place.

– CPX

WARNING: Contains explicit content

nc17

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Skunk Wear

Skunk Wear was a cannabis themed streetwear company founded in the 1990’s. If the streetwear brand THC was like ‘Mad Magazine‘, Skunk Wear was like ‘Cracked‘ magazine – similar but a different art style. They made some really funny drug themed parodies and I have appreciated their art for many years. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of information out there, that I was able to find, regarding the Skunk Wear brand history, so I don’t have much else to tell you about this one.

If there is anyone that was involved with or worked for old school Skunk Wear from the 90’s and early 2000’s that happens to read this post, please reach out to me on Twitter (@CPXART) as I would like to learn more about the company origin and history, learn what you or your artist(s) are up to these days, and I would be honored for CPX.ART to be the source of that information. For anyone that happens to have original Skunk Wear stickers (no reprints) that you do not see in the image slider below, or not-crazy-expensive new old stock t-shirts in L or XL size, print advertising, or anything that you think I would be interested in from Skunk Wear, and that you would be willing to part with, please direct message me on Twitter (@CPXART) and I’ll gladly pay a fair price for it.

– CPX

Original Skunk Wear

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Old Ghosts Designs

Old Ghosts Designs was a veteran streetwear company founded in the late 1980’s by John Grigley, 80’s professional skateboarder (and artist) of Vision team fame, whom released his designs on t-shirts and stickers throughout the 90’s. The name ‘Old Ghost’ originated as a pro-model skateboard deck designed by John, followed by the Vision Guardian, and Vision Aggressor. There are a lot of articles and discussion from other sources that focus on the skateboard deck designs, and while I’m certainly a fan of those too, the focus of this post is to show Old Ghosts Designs art from scans of my collection of stickers.

I really dig the style of the Old Ghosts Designs. I think to fully appreciate this art, you have to recognize that this was before the age of Photoshop and computer graphic manipulation, so a complete image is really comprised of several stacked layers of graphics and text fonts – created the old school way. The lack of color and the stark black and white contrast (the exception being the Barbara Kruger ‘I Shop Therefore I Am’ parody) is also really cool, and I suppose partly due to the photocopy and/or photo negative technique. The theme of sex & drugs & rock & roll (Ian Dury) is also apparent. It’s pretty obvious that this style has gone on to inspire a lot of other street artists and designers over the years. John was way ahead of the pack of unconventional artists producing politically incorrect and bawdy designs, and he is truly a pioneer in the streetwear scene. Respect.

Shamelessly, this is the part of the post where I solicit pieces for my collection that I do not already have. So, if you have any unpeeled, original (not a reprint) stickers, print advertising from Old Ghosts that you do not see in the image slider below, and that you would be willing to part with, please direct message me on Twitter (@CPXART) and I’ll gladly pay a fair price. I am not a reseller. I am an avid collector of average financial means. Also, you can and should follow John Grigley on social media (Twitter: @johngrigley) / (Facebook: facebook.com/grigley) to see how he is spending his time these days.

– CPX

WARNING: Contains explicit content

Old Ghosts Designs

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THC – Grown in the U.S.A.

In the mid-1990’s, when I was a teenager not yet old enough to enter the head shop in the back of a long running hippie / bohemian store called Greeko’s, some of the rad things available for purchase to my teenage self in the all-ages area of the shop was a huge assortment of some of the funniest parody stickers, patches, and t-shirts I had ever seen before. Forget Wacky Packages; these were all weed and drug related and many times more creative, more clever, and better drawn than those. I was a fan as soon as I laid eyes on the art and humor for the first time and I’ve been collecting it ever since.

The counterculture streetwear brand that I am referring to is THC – also known as Totally Hip Clothing, The High Command, To Higher Consciousness, Trees Hills Clouds, Teaching History Class, Towards Harmonious Civilization, Too High Comix, and so on and so forth. In my opinion, THC was the best and most successful counterculture streetwear brand, with the best artist(s) producing the best parodies and characters. THC obviously inspired other brands like Skunk Wear, nc17, Chronic Fatigues, and a bunch of non-branded imitations since then – and has inspired CPX.ART too.

Besides having a reason to get all nostalgic about back-in-the-day (Ahmad), this post is really for me to show scans from my collection of THC stickers that I have collected over the years from several head shops and literally tracked down, purchased, or imported from different parts of the planet Earth. I have quite a few and the scanning for this post took up my free time for a few nights, but I think it’s worth it. I have not found a more comprehensive collection of scanned original prints in one place on the Internet before.

So here we are, at the point in the article where I shamelessly solicit pieces for my collection that I do not already have. If you have any unpeeled, original THC stickers with “thc.com” repeating watermark on the paper backing or legit pre-watermark (it’s easy to tell the difference from these and out-of-focus and oversized reprints from the past decade or so), patches, not-crazy-expensive NOS t-shirts in L or XL size, print advertising, or anything that you think I would be interested in from THC or related (Dementia, Wings of Light, or We the People) and that you do not see in the image sliders below, and that you would be willing to sell me, please direct message me on Twitter (@CPXART) and I’ll gladly pay a fair price.

THC.com is still active and I encourage you to visit the website and show your support for this classic counterculture company. You can even receive free stickers!

– CPX

THC

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Serial Killer

The Serial Killer Inc. streetwear story is a familiar tale unironically as old as the court system, where a unique and creative idea brought to market runs afoul against the United States legal system. Personally, the brand is one of several inspirations for CPX.ART. Started in 1997 by a couple dudes in El Segundo California (where Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest left his wallet), their idea was simple but brilliant; appropriate a still image of famous movie scene(s) or person(s), cultural icon, or has-been, maybe manipulate the image a bit with a photo editing program, and add no more than a few words for humor and/or lampoon. Their artistic creations were printed on tees, hats, beanies, hoodies, stickers, and skateboard decks, and the brand was popular among teens and young adults (and upset a lot of older ones) in the late 90’s and early 00’s. The same idea today is essentially an Internet meme.

Not only was Serial Killer the first to do this genre, but because fair use of copyrighted material has always been subjective to whichever judge is deciding it, and because the legal process is a stressful and costly burden to take on, it takes balls to take a risk and put your mark on this type of artistic creation and sell it as merchandise; but unfortunately those types of lawsuits led to the fall from the company’s pinnacle of success. Not because it was a bad idea or what they were making was not marketable or popular, far from it in fact, but instead because of the unfair copyright laws of the United States, a few plaintiffs that can’t take a joke, and lawyers – what a shame. The creations that Serial Killer produced without permission or consent was a disruption to the system and a middle finger to the establishment, and many of the tangible goods that remain out there as proof of that would not be otherwise had they not taken the guerilla approach that they did.

I am an enthusiast and collector of the Serial Killer art and the purpose of this post is to show some of that art from scans of my collection of stickers and prints. Shamelessly, it’s also an opportunity for me to solicit pieces for my collection that I do not already have. So, if you have any unpeeled, original (not a reprint) stickers or print advertising from Serial Killer or their old copycat’s (American Psycho, nc17, Killer Life, and non-branded) that you do not see in the image slider below, and that you would be willing to part with, please direct message me on Twitter (@CPXART) and I’ll gladly pay a fair price. Also, if you enjoyed this post, and if it’s worth it to you, feel free to donate a couple bucks to me, which will undoubtedly go towards purchase of more art prints to share and write about.

I’d also like to point out that the Serial Killer brand has seen a reboot in the past few years in the skateboarding space and that you should visit and support https://www.serialkillerbrand.com/ and or follow them on Instagram (@serialkillerbrand). I do not receive a commission from nor am I affiliated with them. I just think they’re awesome and respect the guerilla bravado they have to bring their ideas to reality, and I am glad to see they’re still around.

– CPX

WARNING: Contains explicit content

Serial Killer

Here is a PDF I made from a scanned Serial Killer catalog with some more art for you to look at, and a few advertisements [1, 2, 3] I scanned from late 90’s Pop Smear magazine.