Greetings, rippers of the world! We are psyched to announce that Method Mag Issue 16.1 is waiting for you on the shelves of your favorite shop. And as always, available via subscription straight to your door. The first issue of our sixteenth volume marks the launch of our North American distribution and the return of our French edition. Issue 16.1 also includes the first of our Buyer's Guide pull-out booklets for the 2015/2016 season, starting with our Creative Shapes Board Buyer's Guide, fully loaded with some of the most innovative and off-the-wall boards on the shelves this year.

Due in large part to the all-knowing Internet, the snowboard world is more internationally connected than ever. At Method, we have long produced content sourced from every corner of the rip-able globe and this issue continues our mission of unification, with features and strange tales from Salt Lake City to Sarajevo, Helsinki to Sochi.

Beyond the Jérôme Tanon cover shot of Keegan Valaika's massively tweaked backside 720 in Italy, we've got Burton veteran Marko Grilc shooting a call over to Zak Hale, who in turn ropes in Ethan Morgan and Sage Kotsenburg, for an impromptu mission in the Balkans. Next Rome sends the Strange Brew miscreants to meet up with Toni Kerkela in Jyväskalä for a bender of beers and heavy metal. We venture into Mother Russia with the BYNDxMDLS crew for serving of vodka, diy tattoos and a reaping of what's been left behind in Sochi, one year after the Olympic Games.


The Postland Theory crew, who've solidified their place as one of Europe's top film crews over the past few seasons, invite us along for a snowboard experiment, snagging a couple of street-shred virgins and breaking them in in the epicenter of Euro rail riding - Helsinki. And we've got a feature interview with one of skateboarding's most dynamic characters, and long-time snowboarder, Lizard King, on his sudden and aggressive return to snow last winter, skateboarders' true perception of snowboarding, and why you shouldn't give a fuck what other people think.

Issue 16.1 charges forward on interviews with Layne Treeter and Felix Engstrom, an all-analog "My Portfolio" from Carlos Blanchard and all the tweaking, peaking and thrill-seeking you're hooked on. We will also be introducing a series of new columns into the magazine this year, the first of which - "Full Zoom" - makes it's debut in this very issue. (Keep an eye for our next column debut, "85% Bullshit"). Let the fools continue to claim snowboarding is dead. We're here to rip it from the grave!