Ralph Steadman Books

A handsome packaging of material from Jules Feiffer, David Levine, and Ralph Steadman. The volume is a visual and verbal feast, wildly entertaining and informative. Thanks be to Fantagraphics!

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" by Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Thompson practiced total immersion journalism. This form of reporting is called gonzo journalism.

Hunter Thompson drove to Las Vegas to report on a motorcycle race and ended up writing a story about himself writing a story about a motorcycle race. If he would have written a conventional report on motorcycle racing it would have been interesting to motorcycle enthusiasts for a few days. Since he wrote a gonzo story he had a very wide canvas and he used it well to create a classic.

The reader might be turned off by the obstreperous behavior, extreme self indulgence and offensive inconsiderate language. If you can look past this offensive conduct and you will see that Hunter Thompson gave us an insight into the American character of the 1970's.

See also: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (Modern Library)

I completely enjoyed this book and recommend it to others.

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" by Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Thompson practiced total immersion journalism. This form of reporting is called gonzo journalism.

Hunter Thompson drove to Las Vegas to report on a motorcycle race and ended up writing a story about himself writing a story about a motorcycle race. If he would have written a conventional report on motorcycle racing it would have been interesting to motorcycle enthusiasts for a few days. Since he wrote a gonzo story he had a very wide canvas and he used it well to create a classic.

The reader might be turned off by the obstreperous behavior, extreme self indulgence and offensive inconsiderate language. If you can look past this offensive conduct and you will see that Hunter Thompson gave us an insight into the American character of the 1970's.

See also: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (Modern Library)

I completely enjoyed this book and recommend it to others.

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" by Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Thompson practiced total immersion journalism. This form of reporting is called gonzo journalism.

Hunter Thompson drove to Las Vegas to report on a motorcycle race and ended up writing a story about himself writing a story about a motorcycle race. If he would have written a conventional report on motorcycle racing it would have been interesting to motorcycle enthusiasts for a few days. Since he wrote a gonzo story he had a very wide canvas and he used it well to create a classic.

The reader might be turned off by the obstreperous behavior, extreme self indulgence and offensive inconsiderate language. If you can look past this offensive conduct and you will see that Hunter Thompson gave us an insight into the American character of the 1970's.

See also: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (Modern Library)

I completely enjoyed this book and recommend it to others.

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" by Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Thompson practiced total immersion journalism. This form of reporting is called gonzo journalism.

Hunter Thompson drove to Las Vegas to report on a motorcycle race and ended up writing a story about himself writing a story about a motorcycle race. If he would have written a conventional report on motorcycle racing it would have been interesting to motorcycle enthusiasts for a few days. Since he wrote a gonzo story he had a very wide canvas and he used it well to create a classic.

The reader might be turned off by the obstreperous behavior, extreme self indulgence and offensive inconsiderate language. If you can look past this offensive conduct and you will see that Hunter Thompson gave us an insight into the American character of the 1970's.

See also: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (Modern Library)

I completely enjoyed this book and recommend it to others.

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" by Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Thompson practiced total immersion journalism. This form of reporting is called gonzo journalism.

Hunter Thompson drove to Las Vegas to report on a motorcycle race and ended up writing a story about himself writing a story about a motorcycle race. If he would have written a conventional report on motorcycle racing it would have been interesting to motorcycle enthusiasts for a few days. Since he wrote a gonzo story he had a very wide canvas and he used it well to create a classic.

The reader might be turned off by the obstreperous behavior, extreme self indulgence and offensive inconsiderate language. If you can look past this offensive conduct and you will see that Hunter Thompson gave us an insight into the American character of the 1970's.

See also: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (Modern Library)

I completely enjoyed this book and recommend it to others.

I read this book some years ago, and was very amused by the format of storytelling. If da Vinci had ever written his own biography, I imagine it would be very much along the lines of Mr. Steadman's version of the events in Leonardo's life. Hilarious, gross, intelligent, and with fantastic illustrations throughout. Considering Leonardo da Vinci's fascination with caricatures in his own art, he would definitely love this book.

Ralph Steadman goes with HST like chalk with cheese. They were so different from one another but they collaborated together like a well oiled machine. Steadman speaks fondly for the good Dr. but he DOES stand up for himself because Hunter could take people for granted or could be demanding or selfish. Excellent book about two very different men that had one thing in common. They both understood the nature of *weird*.

Ralph Steadman. You may not know the name, but believe me, you'd recognize the art style at a glance. His furious, spastic pen-and-ink drawings laced with blown inks and blots of thick black-- as if someone snuck up behind him and yelled BOO! and his pen nib got frightened and let loose-- have been featured in perhaps every magazine and graced the covers of more than just his own books (the old cover for "Fear and Loathing" by Hunter S. Thompson comes to mind...). What's fascinating is the amount of books he has written himself.

With such a jumbled style of illustration, you might find it odd that he's written a childrens' book. Published in Australia in 1989 and currently out of print in the States, it exists in "No Room to Swing a Cat."

Our tale opens when our hero, Tom, announces that his room is too small (hardly surprising considering it's stuffed to the gills with blocks, cars, checkerboards, stuffed animals-- including a moose and dinosaur-- and Tom himself). His mother asks what he means, and Tom says that it's not even big enough to swing a cat in. NOTE: Tom doesn't WANT to swing a cat in it, he's merely pointing out that you CANNOT swing a cat in it-- a distinction that should probably be made to children who get this book read to them.

Thereafter ensues some Steadmanian fun-- mainly two page spreads of Tom swinging various animals to his mother's enquiry of how big his room SHOULD be. "Big enough to swing a pig?" his mother asks, and there on the page is a teeny Tom swinging a large, stunned looking pig by the tail. Tom goes through a number of different animals, each getting larger and more ridiculous looking as they're being swung, until it's revealed that he want's his room big enough for HIM to swing in. At which point he and his mother go outside to Tom's swingset.

If you've seen Steadman's artwork, you'll know it's quite chaotic and sometimes almost sinister-looking. Big blobs of ink are splattered pell-mell across the canvas; if the ink were red, you might think he had been brained right there at his easel. Tom himself is depicted with a big frown-- a simple upside-down semicircle line across his face that gives him a somewhat haunted look. For the last decade or so, the trend in children's books have been towards self-esteem and conflict resolution and away from chaotic illustrations of cockeyed kids whizzing stunned dogs around over their heads. The British phrase use as the title and genesis of the book may be enough for many people to pass up the chance to search for this one, but I personally don't see much harm in it.

Firstly, most of the animals Tom flails about are already taking up space in his room at the very beginning of the book, and it seems reasonable to me that any room that you can't successfully swing a stuffed moose in IS too small.

Secondly, for older children it can help to explain the complex world of adult phrases and simile ("guerrilla warfare" was the one that always stumped me when I was a child; I had visions of half-man, half-ape creatures fighting it out with American soldiers).

Finally, in a world where children have ready access to handguns and Pokemon has our preschoolers running amok pretending to shock, zap or burn each other to cinders, the amusing (if queerly drawn) pictures of one child swinging a stuffed elephant around to show how small his room is pales by comparison.

Hunter S. ( Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas) Thompson's illustrator, friend and drinking buddy, Ralph Steadman, turns his pen, colors, thoughts and attention to an America where "even God can be acquired with a credit card."

This collection of paintings and drawings, in color and black and white, satirizes the Land of the Free and was published in the late 80s. It looks at the Nixon years, Vietnam, Watergate and Reagan in a "take no prisoners" manner, suggesting that the quality of life depends on personal wealth and air-conditioning.

A Britisher, Steadman is one of the world's leading illustrators. His look at the USA is not bound by conditioning or preconceived ideas. A terrific book, full of laughs and rueful considerations. Another addition to Steadamn's wonderful body of work.