Who remembers Top Trumps cards? Way back in the day, I had a set of Dinosaur Top Trumps, neatly tied together with an elastic band and carried around in my back pocket at all times, ready to whip out the instant someone wanted a battle. Triceratops, Velociraptor and of course a Tyrannosaurus Rex were the 3 crown jewels of the set. I can’t recall ever being dealt all 3 of those together in one round but as a carefree seven-year-old, that was the ultimate dream. In many ways this, issue 152 is a bit like a pack of Top Trump cards, in the fact that we have interviews with Jamie Lynn, Kazu and Bryan Iguchi in the same issue. If you were to interview 100 snowboarders who their top 10 favourite riders of all time were, I guarantee that those rider’s names would make the list, time and time again. 

I started pondering why these three individuals have always been some of the most popular riders of all time, with a demand has remained strong over several decades. Obviously, it’s a given that they are all incredibly talented snowboarders, but there’s more to them than that. I believe that collectively they carry an air of mystery around them, and we are left wanting to know more. Jamie and Bryan originally found fame, in a pre-internet era. A time when a four-minute video part, a shot in a magazine or a full-length movie ,such as Volcom’s much loved “The Garden”, was all we would see from them for an entire year. Kazu came along later but also appeared and disappeared just as quickly and we were left wondering what he was up to, until his insane full part dropped as the opener for Union’s Stronger.  
Being active on Instagram is now very much part of the job of being a professional snowboarder and we now live in a time when you can search for any rider and see what they had for lunch, what shoes they bought and what movie they watched before they went to bed.  
When a person’s life is laid out in its entirety online, quite often I don’t feel the need to know more about them, because they have already broadcast it. Being an enigma might not get them more Instagram followers, but it does make people want to know more.  
So have a read for yourself, I can’t promise you will find out what Jamie Lynn had for dinner last night, but I hope you will be as stoked as we were to gather the insights of three legendary riders in one issue.

Enjoy Pleasure 152,

Tom

On the cover: Kazu Kokubo; photo by Darcy Bacha.

Inside the mag: Jamie Lynn, Meg Stark, Kazu Kokubo, Myoko by Colin Wiseman, Bryan Iguchi, Leilani Ettel, 10 Years of KORUA Shapes, some of the finest new products, Art Pages, lots of rad photography, and much more.