Casey Foley is a skater from Melbourne, Australia who we've been fans of for a while. It recently came to our attention that he also does as skate zine called Ducktales, so given our affinity for all things printed, we hit him up and talked with him about it.

It's ambitious that you skate and do a project like this - how do you balance the two?

It really just comes naturally. I really enjoy shooting photos when I’m out skating. It’s the best feeling ever if you get a clip and shoot a photo in one day. I grew up reading all the mags and studying every photo, so I want to do my part to keep print alive.

Who shoots the photos?

I shoot 95% of the photos. From time to time, I have a “guest photographer” section where he/she can display their work and talk write about each image. I don’t like the idea of sending my photos to other magazines. I also like the idea of not having any rules or guidelines to follow.

I’ve printed photos of flatground kickflips before, singles of ledge tricks, a chill wallride. The idea of capturing the style of the skater is always more important to me than some big ass stunt that all the mags want.

Who writes?
That's me too. I’m not the best writer, though. My partner is always correcting my grammar and what not. I get people to write introductions to interviews, but other than that it’s all me.

Who does the layout?
That's me too, g. Haha. The whole project is mine man. I’d like to put issues out more often, but it’s a really slow process at the moment.

Did you go to school for photography or graphic design?

I went to photography school for a little. It was only 3 hours a week for 4 months. I wasn’t really into it. It’s just a hobby of mine so having assignments due and stuff like that was draining.

No school for graphic design either.. The design is really simple and clean. Nothing too technical, so I feel like anyone could do it. My friend Sammy helped me out heaps in terms of the design. Well, she pretty much gave me a list of do’s and dont’s. Every issue has a mistake though, man. Text too close to the binding, photo resolution is shite, colours look different when printed, etc. I learn a lot from each issue, which is great.

The zine itself visually impressive - where do you look to for inspiration?

Cheers! I usually look for inspiration in similar projects. I have a fat stack of magazines from all over the world that I look for inspiration in. Dank, SOLO, Grey, Stoops, Manual Magazine and Monster Children, to name a few.

Are you from Melbourne originally?

Nah I’m from a small town in New Zealand called Oamaru.

I moved to Melbourne when I was 18. I guess it’s like the “Floridians moving to New York” type of thing. You get better money here, there is way more opportunity, more skating, spots, etc. If you wanted to even get a photo, or film a part, it’s almost impossible in Oamaru. There are literally 2 or 3 spots. When I say spots, I’m talking about a brick 11 stair, a giant gap made of the worst concrete imaginable and a flat gap with 8 metre run up that sits on the edge of a corroding hill. A lot of the homies were living here at the time so it made it easy to settle in to the “big city”. I’d say 60% off the skate scene here in Melbourne are from New Zealand now.

What's the scene like in Melbourne?

It’s amazing man. Heaps of up and coming dudes for sure. Melbourne is the epicentre of street skating in Australia. You get a lot of people moving here from New Zealand, Perth and Queensland as well as an abundance of Japanese and French skaters.

Everyone is super tight, so sometimes you’ll end up rolling through the city 20+ deep. You’ll be surprised about how fucking good everyone is too! Dudes out here get slept on for sure.

Give us some spots in Melbourne.
The most iconic is the State Library. The shit that’s been done on that is absolutely insane. Callum Paul has absolutely killed that thing. The OG Melbourne guys can skate that thing so well. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Lincoln Square RIP. That was our home for a very long time. It was like the LOVE Park of Australia. The plaza was on my way home from work for years, so I would spend insane amounts of time there. Also, if you rocked up solo, 99% change there is going to be a good crew there. The best times of my life were there, straight up.

IMAX/Melbourne Museum, pretty much our version of Republique in Paris. Flatground for days and kind of good ledges. It’s in the middle of one of the nicest parks in Melbourne so if you don’t wanna skate you can just chill in the park and have a few beers.

Doing anything physical in this day and age can be expensive - how do you finance the printing of the zine?

It’s not cheap, but it just pays for itself now which is great. I send a pre book to a bunch of stores, so I only print quantities of what is actually ordered. Also the last issue was supported by Nike SB, The 4 Skate Co, ButterGoods, Sports Class and DAYLIGHT so that helped out a lot. It seems to keep growing and growing which is rad.

The zine is now available in the UK, Japan, New Zealand, USA, Singapore and a bunch of stores around Australia. People seem to be really hyped on it now. It’s been a long process to make it legit, but I think finally it’s starting to get a bit of traction.

How do people get Ducktales in the states?
Josh at Theories has been selling them! It’s a trip having one of my biggest inspirations selling my product.