''Blood Wizard isn't underground, it's other-dimension!'' - with these words, the Thrasher Magazine fittingly describes the DIY brand from San Francisco.
As legend has it, the Blood Wizard was stillborn and left to rot in the hollow of an ancient gnarled tree deep in a dark forest. After three days and nights, an angry storm rose up to devour the countryside, killing all who lived there. At midnight, the sky exploded in a wicked bolt of lightning that ripped through the heart of the tree and into the corpse of the Blood Wizard. When the storm passed the Blood Wizard was alive and cursed with the terrible magic of blood and fire. With the wood from the tree that was his tomb, he made these skateboards, for those with the courage to survive their power. To ride with the Blood Wizard is to ride the lightning edge between life and death. At the threshold of fire, on the sacred wood he created.
Founding member Toad gives a slightly different account of what inspired the creation of Blood Wizard: there are a lot of lost souls in San Francisco. They live a hard life on the streets and eventually grow thick beards and long hair which makes them look like wizards. The intravenous consume of various illegal substances adds blood to the mix...
The graphic designs of the young brand are the creation of Sacramento-based artist Skinner Davis. Davis is a perfectionist when it comes to dark praphic designs, as one can see in every single Blood Wizard deck. The incredible illustrations in both full-length videos Blood Wizard and Wizard Bloody Wizard (in cooperation with Thrasher) are his work.
Team riders of the brand include the former Emerica pro and SOTY 1995 Chris Senn, his son Anakin Senn (yeah, he did!), skate-film legend Mike Manzoori, Ben Krahn, Jerry Van Gurney, Jackson Jeffrey Given, Tristan Michael Moss, Rob Allen Mason, Wesley Louis Cooper III, Nich Kunz, Andrew Charles Dezort, Antonius Stavous Dintcho and Chris Gregson.
Blood Wizard is a DIY company run by skateboarders who still have their everyday 9-to-5s. No American dream from rags to riches, but a hardworking company which lives and breathes skateboarding!
