“There's the weather and then there's Surfer. During the past 50 years, no two elements have affected the surfer's life more profoundly,” documentary filmmaker, professional surfer and former longtime editor Sam George says in Surfer Magazine: 50 Years, the San Clemente-based pub's latest homage to the surfing culture it has chronicled for half a century.
According to the detailed, introspective anniversary book, Surfer has been an integral part of surfing history ever since the sport started becoming popular in the U.S. in the 1950s and '60s.
George and Shaun Tomson, authors of the anniversary collection, make a great case for that claim, too, with hundreds of beautifully shot photos of surfers and the magnificent locales whose waves they conquered.
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Plenty of the features are by the editors of Surfer themselves, including some by John Severson, founder of the magazine and Southern California native (he grew up in Pasadena and San Clemente, and attended Long Beach State).
Even if you're not that interested in surfing, beaches, awesome waves, amazing photography, women in bikinis or basically everything else that rocks about surfing culture, many of Surfer's features are damn good reads.
And there's a list of the 20 surfers with the best porn names! Nick Wood was voted the best, but Damien Hardman also rated highly.
The best part about this book is its photos. The amazing photography work that Surfer does is a big part of the reason the magazine has been such an important cornerstone of the ever-increasing popularity of the sport.
The features in the book also cover the obstacles and triumphs the magazine itself experienced, including the ethical quandaries of exposing new shore breaks around the world to thousands of surfers, sometimes at the expense of the locals who didn't appreciate the sudden migration of beach bums to their shores.
Surfer Magazine: 50 Years retails at $40, but most of you surfer hippies will probably just borrow one anyway.
