A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Flagship surf magazine published monthly out of San Juan Capistrano, California, founded in 1960 by surfer-artist-filmmaker John Severson; the longest continuously published surf magazine, and sometimes referred to as the "Bible of the sport."

Severson was a high school teacher with two surf films to his credit when he began to write and design 

, a 36-page, black-and-white, horizontally formatted marketing piece for 

, his third movie. He sold 5,000 copies, enough to convince him to produce 

 in 1961. Often labeled as the first publication of its kind, 

 was in fact preceded by at least two other short-lived surf magazines. Color pages were introduced in 1962, as Severson stepped up to a bimonthly publishing schedule (monthly issues were introduced in 1978), and the name was shortened to 

 was firmly established as the sport's leading voice by the mid-'60s, fending off challenges from a half-dozen other California-based surfing magazines, and serving as a template for a small but growing number of surf magazines around the world. For several years, the magazine's tone and layout were fairly conservative, with a features mix consisting almost entirely of travel articles, contest reporting, surf spot profiles, big-wave pictorials, and surfer interviews. Severson was pictured in a "meet the staff" page wearing a coat and tie, and the magazine often railed against gremmies and hodads and others who didn't adhere to the surf industry's rigid "clean-up-the-sport" dictums.

Severson hired knowledgeable surf writers (including Bill Cleary, Craig Lockwood, and Fred Van Dyke), top photographers (Ron Church, Ron Stoner), and first-rate graphic designers (John Van Hamersveld, Mike Salisbury).

 produced the best comedy of any '60s-era surf magazine, with Rick Griffin's Murphy cartoon series, and the fictitious rants of JJ Moon, self-appointed "number-one surfer in the world." John Witzig's 1967 essay, "We're Tops Now," proclaiming Australian surfing superiority over the Americans, went on to become the sport's single best-known article.

's biggest transformation came in 1968, after Severson hired Drew Kampion to not only edit the magazine but make it relevant to the times. Kampion, an outspoken 24-year-old Buffalo-born journalist, took 

 deep into the counterculture for three years, with anticontest articles, drug references, environmental features, oblique fiction pieces, and free-verse poetry.

 in 1970 to For Better Living Inc., and handed over publishing duties to editor-writer Steve Pezman, who remained with the magazine for two decades. (Pezman would later found the San Clemente–based 

magazine, published nearby, had emerged as

's main rival, in both sales and content. Both magazines took a fairly middle-of-the-road editorial position as the sport's popularity grew in the late '70s, then exploded in the mid- and late '80s; 

 aimed at readers in their late teens and early 20s, while 

 article on the magazine noted that it was read by Brooke Shields, Andy Warhol, Jackie Onassis, Tom Wolfe and Price Charles. "It's a perfect magazine for the fashion crowd," Gloria Vanderbilt said, "because it's all pictures and hardly any stories. I think there's an erotic thing going, too.")

's a radical makeover in 1991 (criticized by many, including founder Severson, as dark and stifling), before going on to become one of the design world's best-known figures. 

 had two major scoops in the early '90s, first with "Cold Sweat," the debut article on Maverick's, California's soon-to-be-famous big-wave break, followed shortly by "The Next Realm?," the first feature on tow-surfing. Derek Hynd's critical assessment of the world pro tour's ranking surfers became a popular annual feature (and later served a model for Lewis Samuels' equally-popular "Power Rankings" series for Surfline and PostSurf in the late '00s); from the mid-'90s to the early '00s, editors Steve Hawk and Sam George produced a series of lengthy and well-researched topical articles on subjects like localism, surf resorts, and drugs and surfing.

 hired many of the best surf journalists, including Phil Jarratt, Kevin Naughton, Craig Peterson, Derek Hynd, Matt George, Matt Warshaw, Ben Marcus, Steve Barilotti, and Lewis Samuels, along with celebrated surf photographers like Art Brewer, Steve Wilkings, Jeff Divine, Warren Bolster, Peter Crawford, Don King, Ted Grambeau, Jeff Hornbaker, Tom Servais, Chris Burkard, Jason Kenworthy, and Jason Childs. The soft-spoken Grant Ellis has been the photo editor at 

 spin-off magazines over the years include 

The annual Surfer Magazine Readers Poll began in 1963, and the Surfer Magazine Video Awards were founded in 1996.

 Magazine Video, a half- hour cable TV show, premiered on ESPN in 1986; Surfermag.com debuted in 1995. In 2004, the magazine launched Fantasy Surfer, an online game modeled after Fantasy Baseball and other similar "leagues," where readers put together their own teams of real-life pros, and score points based on how their teams perform in actual contests. SURFER: The Bar, a nightspot, opened in the Turtle Bay Resort, near the North Shore, in 2010.

The Perfect Day: 40 Years of Surfer Magazine

 was published by Chronicle Books in 2001; 

Photo Stoner: the Rise, Fall, and Mysterious Disappearance of Surfing's Photographer

For Better Living, longtime parent company of Surfer Publications, sold the magazine group to Petersen Publishing in 1998; Petersen in turn was bought by Emap Publishing. In 2001, Primedia, 

 magazine's parent company, bought Emap, bringing the longtime rivals 

 into the same publishing house; both magazines were bought by Source Interlink in 2007, and in 2013 Source also became the parent company of 

, meaning the sport's three biggest magazines were all owned by the same company.

's monthly circulation in 2013 was 103,000.

, at 374 pages, remains the largest surf magazine ever published.

Surfer magazine

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