Gonzo: The Art

Gonzo: The Art

A three-decade retrospective of Ralph Steadman?s caustic, witty, outrageous art, including illustrations fromFear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the other legendary collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson that spawned "gonzo journalism." Illustrated throughout in color and black-and-white, with an introduction by Hunter S. Thompson.Amazon.com ReviewHunter S. Thompson, in his drunken, rambling introduction to this volume of paintings and illustrations, calls Ralph Steadman "the Albert Gore of twentieth century art." It's hard to imagine a less apt appellation: Steadman's drawings and paintings are the wild antithesis of the notoriously stiff V.P. His pop art is also the opposite of Warhol's clean lines and soulless imagery; it screams with pain and nightmare power. While Steadman is best known for his illustrations to Thompson'sFear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other works, here his art is given free rein, and works with titles like "Earliest man, full of the sense of his own worth, screaming into the blackness, needing no god but himself..." and "Good time crucifix" combine Steadman's trademark splattered ink and unfolded figures with collage and sloppy airbrush. Although the text may offend those with no sense of irony (Thompson compares Steadman to artist manqu