A Few Things We Got Horribly Wrong

You don’t make 60 years of magazines without dropping some balls. Here are a few

- By Justin Housman

Not to toot our own horn or anything, but making a magazine isn’t easy. Ideas don’t grow on trees, intros and columns don’t write themselves and the mountains of photos that pour in daily must be painstakingly winnowed down to best illustrate the stories. Then everything must be assembled like a puzzle by overworked art directors, making sure everything lines up properly in layouts to make a book that’s enjoyable to read. Any hiccups along the way can mess up everything. Getting all the nuts and bolts right is mandatory, but even when you do, there are plenty of other opportunities to mess things up. Did every decision made by the editors work? Did it have the right blend of stories? Will the opinions expressed feel dated and seem trite in a few years? Is it missing any trends that are about to light the surf world on fire? Answer those questions, then do it all over again next issue. Obviously, we aren’t perfect. Nor has any editorial staff in SURFER’s history ever been. And in a strange, masochistic kind of anniversary celebration, we’ve picked a handful of our most embarrassing misses, errors and goofs from 60 years in print. Please facepalm along with us.

Shaun “MR” Tomson

In the late 1970s, Shaun Tomson and Mark Richards had a kind of friendly rivalry centered around busting through performance barriers and looking stylish as hell while doing it. MR, with his knock-kneed, wide stance and spread arms was flowing, barely contained exuberance. Tomson was refined, smooth, gentlemanly even while being radical. He could have worn a tux into the tube and it would have seemed perfectly reasonable.