Anyone else remember "Hook-ups"?

[usamimi]

I was having a conversation with a friend about the "Japanimation" boom in the 90s, and she reminded me of something I hadn't thought of in quite some time: there was a huge boom in anime t-shirts, stickers, etc in the early 90s thanks to a skateboard company called "Hook-ups". I remember lots of guys in my middle school started wearing shirts by that company, as well as buying skate gear and stickers sporting their art and logos. I even remember starting up conversations with a couple of people with, "Hey, I like your shirt! You like anime?"

Hook-ups is still around to this day, actually, which I wasn't really expecting: http://hookupsskateboards.com/ (They still seem to like using anime-style art for most of their gear, too.)

So out of curiosity, I started poking around eBay to see if I could find any of the stuff I remembered seeing back in the day, and I realized that a lot of the artwork they used were poorly traced versions of other artist's works, or just blatant art theft (some of them look as if they just copied artwork right out of Japanese magazines they had found or something...which, I guess can be enthusiasm towards their love of the style, but at the same time it's definitely stealing.) It's funny to think that back then, hardly anyone knew what any of this art was from...I don't think any company could get away with that now. (At least, not on the same scale they were at the time!)

I snagged a few images from eBay and decided to post some here that I found, along with the art that it was "inspired by" for comparison, just for fun.




From Battle Angel Alita:







From Burn Up/Burn Up W:





From Bubblegum Crisis:






From Gatchaman:








From X (X/1999):





From Darkstalkers:





From Iria:Zeiram The Animation:





From Iczer:






From Devil Hunter Yohko:






From Battle Arena Toshinden:





From Samurai Showdown:





From artist "U-jin":






This looks to be a mix of Gundam and Galaxy Fraulein Yuna?:



And my personal favorite...mixing Ranma 1/2 with Marmalade Boy & a bad drawing of the head of the company:






I have loads more but I figured this would be good for a start, heh. XD

[greg]

I totally remember Hook-Ups! I was in high school at the time. Some skater-types who only really knew Akira told me, "Hey, you should go to that one skate shop at such and such. They have Japanimation T-shirts there." So I went to that store and I saw a t-shirt featuring Madoka from Orange Road, sporting a nasty-ass tattoo. I saw that I and I was like, "SACRILEGE! How dare they do that to Madoka!" Looking at the pictures you posted above, I must say their best plagiarism is when they took a character like the one from Burn Up above and changed the face and hair around to make almost an original character.

There was a member on here named Brain Trash (whom unfortunately disappeared after a while) with whom I discussed the impact of skaters on early anime fandom. In his experience, the skaters were the ones who knew a lot about anime, whereas at my high school, all the skaters really knew were stuff like Akira and Speed Racer. Maybe sometimes Robotech or FotNS and other stuff with plenty of blood or something. I was something of a proto-otaku at my high school because there didn't seem to be any real anime/manga fans at my school. Either that or they didn't make it known. I was the only one at school wearing anime T-shirts like my Lum shirt or my Macross:DYRL shirt.

[usamimi]

When I was in school, it seemed like a LOT of "skaters" and similar kids of those circles also really liked anime. In my school, the guys I hung out with were of the mindset "the more fighting & violence, the better!", so of course they liked stuff like Akira, Battle Royal High School, Devilman, etc. (Or stuff that had a lot of fan service, naturally. I mean, they were teenage dudes.) I think that was one of the reasons I ended up hanging out with a lot of them in the first place, they saw me as "one of the guys" because I also liked anime and horror movies and stuff that a lot of the girls in my homeroom had no interest in whatsoever.

I've never seen a Madoka one! Geez, I kind of want to see it now, even though I'd probably have the same reaction....XD It's hard to find a lot of their t-shirt designs from back in the day because whenever one pops up on eBay it seems to sell very quickly (and for a lot, which kinda surprises me). I wish I could find some of their old catalogs, I used to flip through them all the time when someone brought one to school.

[davemerrill]

I saw a "Hook Ups" sticker on the back of a car recently, and it was a good five minutes before the memories all started flooding back in, all the fakey ripoff Hot Topic "Japanimation" aesthetic that is unmistakably 90s. So very 90s.

[Animusubi]

Woooow! I didn't realize they plagiarized and straight up stole the designs. O: I guess I remember Hook-ups and at the same time don't. I think I had a small skateboard with a design on it, though I recall it being one of the more Americanized anime girls than one of the blatant copies.

I checked out their website and it looks like some of the designs, while not as obvious as the ones usamimi showed, are definitely still taking some ideas and designs from others. These ones on this page are totally Junko Mizuno knock-offs. :/

[usamimi]

Yeah, I didn't realize at the time they had straight-up stolen designs until I really started looking & I realized I recognized a LOT of their "characters" and designs. They did have some original art/characters (like they do now), but it seems that, at first, their copies severely outweighed the originals. Here's some more "vintage" 90s designs:



This time, blatant copies of Akira, more Devil Hunter Yohko, Ultraman, and Gundam.




And even Hell Teacher Nube, who they renamed....Tetsuo?! (Well, since we know they liked Akira, I guess that's where that name came from...)



Ryoran, I definitely agree those newer pieces you linked are very reminiscent of Junko Mizuno (not terribly surprising, a lot of artist/companies are trying to rip off her style these days...). Surprisingly, they're still using some of their old designs/characters from the 90s! Specifically these:


The "Dream Girl" one reminds me of a re-drawn "Iczelion":


And the others look vaguely familiar, but I dunno if it's because I've seen them before, or if they're visually similar to something else. Hmm.

I almost wouldn't mind getting that "Dream Girl" poster just because it totally screams "90's Anime craze!" to me, but at the same time, I dunno how I'd feel about giving money to a company that blatantly rips off art and has been for years

[nordstar]

I like the Hook-Ups stickers. My favorite one is the Clockwork Orange designs. I recently found a 2' x 3' vinyl banner of one of the designs in a skate shop at a mall and asked if it was for sale and got turned down

Remember though that a lot of the early stuff that were direct copies of anime art were done not by a real company but the skater Jeremy Klein who founded Hook-Ups. It was very common and still is today for skaters to be somewhat guerrilla artists, either borrowing or stealing someone else's artwork and adding their flair to it for self promotion. Not that I am defending him or them. Over time they moved to a more stylized version of the anime characters like what they sell today. It is at some point that a lot of one particular style becomes pop art and becomes generic in nature.

[greg]

It was very common and still is today for skaters to be somewhat guerrilla artists, either borrowing or stealing someone else's artwork and adding their flair to it for self promotion. Not that I am defending him or them.

Now that you mention that, you're right. I remember seeing one skateboard that was essentially the album cover to The Sundays' "Blind" album and I thought it was the coolest thing ever (I loved that album and Harriet Wheeler's voice). Ironically, the dude who had it didn't even know who the band was. Not surprising, since a typical skater wouldn't be into The Smiths-inspired dreampop. I do remember seeing so many other style copies used for skateboards.

[danth]

I had a black Iria Hook-Ups shirt in high school. Got it at the local surfer/skater shop. I would have bought a bunch more if I had found any.

[davemerrill]

this would actually make a great Let's Anime blog post. I had no idea Hook-Ups was so blatant in its copyright theft. It's one thing to borrow images from works that were never released in North America, but Akira and Gatchaman? Come on.