Richard “Dick” Graham*
Dick Graham created a media legacy that was iconic to surf culture for more than half a century: Surfing Magazine. Graham began surfing at age 18 in California and, after college and a short stint with the Marines, was hired by Petersen Publishing, a large-scale magazine conglomerate in Los Angeles owned by surfer and media mogul, Pete Petersen, that would offer him an opportunity to merge his passions for surfing and journalism.
Graham teamed up with legendary surfboard builder Hobie Alter in 1962, and the pair co-wrote Surfing Made Easy, an instructional book for surf novices. The following year, Graham coordinated the launch of Petersen’s Surfing Yearbook, the publishing group’s debut surf magazine. By 1964, Graham was promoted to editor of Petersen’s Surfing and by the end of the year would launch International Surfing— later shortened to Surfing — alongside legendary photographer Leroy Grannis. The publication quickly rivaled the well-established Surfer magazine.
Graham became known as a well-rounded surf journalist, penning stories and taking his own photos. His images appeared on four of the six Surfing covers from 1967. That same year, Graham visited Australia with the Windansea Surf Club and became one of the first Americans to witness surfers riding the new vee-bottom boards that signaled the start of the Shortboard Revolution. He returned to Petersen and convinced them to do a second run of Petersen’s Surfing in which Graham out-scooped all the other national surf publications to break the news to America that the longboard era was over and the Shortboard Revolution had begun.
In 1969, Graham released his second surfing book, Kings of the Surf, which profiled the top surfers of the day. After a few more years in the magazine business, Graham moved on to work for surfboard and surf apparel companies, including as the VP of Marketing for Hang Ten and the co-owner of Lightning Bolt International. He would return to the world of book publishing in 2015, releasing his surfing photo-essay, The Ride.
