Marcelle Johnson has been a legendary Next Generation icon for H-Street since the early 90’s. He grew up in East San Diego and became part of the H-Street Familia as a young 12 year old ripper, who had an incredible sense of humor and larger-than-life personality. Marcelle skated and filmed with T-Mag for H-Street’s last video named Lick and infamously did this trailer for the edit that was almost lost to history. MJ channeled his older brother Michael for this crazy edit him and T-Mag worked on. A must see and one of T-Mag’s best edits, according to himself.
At the same time, Plan B had just started and miraculously, Mike Ternasky had persuaded Rodney Mullen to join the cadre of elite skateboarders. Everyone was waiting to see what this new company of rippers with Mike T at the helm was actually going to look like, artistically and graphically. This was also a time when sublimated slick bottom graphics had become a new innovation in skateboarding manufacturing and photos were able to print on a skateboard in a more lifelike and realistic fashion than anytime before. The 90’s was a revolutionary time on all sorts on non-skateboarding fronts as well, with the advent of Grunge and Hip-hop as music genres and creative people were pushing the envelope on every front, including technology.
It was in this moment that Mike T and Rodney Mullen created Rodney’s motorcycle graphic, with him riding it and his girl standing up topless behind him with a defiant “F you” look and attitude to the world.
We don’t know much about the graphic, like who took the photo, who’s idea it was or really anything about it at all. Just what we saw and how we were impacted by the statement of this daring and brilliant graphics idea and composition. It was clear that Plan B would be a force to be reckoned with, in every imageable way.
For reasons that are lost to history, Marcelle never had a Pro board on H-Street and skateboarding in the 90’s seemed a bit lost at sea in general. During the Summer of 2021 at a creative meeting in Mission Beach, during Danny’s Big Wednesday event he’s resurrected with Darin Navarette, Mag and Marcelle talked about Rodney’s MC graphic, how great it was and the idea of turning that into a re-imagined version for the long awaited Marcelle Johnson Model. What was a fun idea at a crazy skateboard sesh quickly turned into reality, once Chris Dangaard got involved.
Marcelle got together with his girl, T-Mag and Chris and using Mag’s bike, they created a tribute to one of the most controversial and progressive graphics of the 90’s, Rodney Mullen’s Plan B Motocycle graphic. It’s an appreciation statement of strong and independent minded female’s, 90’s skateboarding and whoever created Rodney’s graphic and concept in the first place.
This idea and concept were shared with several of our highly skilled artists, with promises of their own illustrated versions of the classic graphic, featuring Marcelle of course. This is Bob Hickman’s version that he and T-Mag worked on together. Check our original here.