Six years on since the father of Gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson, committed suicide comes the release of this unique take on a biography. 'Gonzo' delves past the drink, drugs and 'Fear and Loathing...' to chart the great man's astounding life.
“No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun – for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax – This won’t hurt.”
The suicide note left by Hunter S. Thompson the day he blew his brains out stating that he was old, bored, bitchy and had nothing to watch on telly seemed, when taking in the life he lead, fair enough reasons to say good bye. Hunter can rest in peace knowing he left behind an enviable legacy- be it Nixon bashing, the urban legends, knowing the exact moment to call someone a ‘pigfucker’ or his humility in influencing generations of writers and journalists.
‘Gonzo’ is a unique joint project detailing Hunter’s life in the form of a graphic novel, the product of writer Will Bingley and illustrator Anthony Hope-Smith it is clearly a labour of love. Will catches Hunter’s pace down to a tee while Anthony’s often hunched and frowning caricature is a dream. But what stood out to me is with all the vulgarity, quotables and drug-fuelled tall stories it’s sometimes easy to forget what an accomplished and pioneering writer he was. ‘Gonzo’ somewhat steps away from the Hunter stereotype of booze and ether binges and provides a look into the early days of his career. I wouldn’t say this is a comprehensive insight into his life seeing as it is a graphic novel and not ‘War and Peace’. However if you’re an old fan and capable of not shitting your pants in a purist rage over this not being a collection of Steadman images, this is certainly a collectable. If you’re a new fan discovering that his career spanned much more than just ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ this will complement the inevitable hours spent ploughing through his old essays and books excellently.
Well I enjoyed it anyway and luckily I got to pick the brains of the, erm, brains behind it…
How did Gonzo come about?
A: After a number of years slogging away on, for the most part, some rather unglamorous illustration projects, the desire to produce a piece in my favourite medium hit a boiling point. My concern was that if this was to be my one opportunity to produce a graphic novel then I had better choose the project wisely. As luck should have it, around that time I first met Will through some mutual friends, and he told me about some projects he was pitching. He mentioned this project, and it caught my interest in a big way. As soon as he sent me through actual script and other bits, I knew I had to do it.
W: I guess it just seemed like a good idea. There had been a plethora of Hunter S. Thompson biographies released in the wake of his suicide in 2005, most of which were pretty good. But, we felt there wasn’t anything that extensively addressed the myths he’s associated with, or that introduced his work properly and contextualised it for our generation of younger readers.
It’s billed as a ‘non-fictional illustrated biography’, how did you piece it together?
A: For my part of the process – the visuals – I had to learn Hunter in the physical. I studied images, footage, the documentaries as well as reading his words, in order to try to best capture him. I then had to filter all the accumulated knowledge through my own art style and approach.
W: We started out with months and months and months of research. Then once we’d mapped out a kind of Hunter S Thompson landscape covering every aspect of his life, Ant and I picked up our bindles and set about figuring a journey through it.
There’s a fair amount of booze and drug abuse in the book, but there was so much more than that to the guy. It would have been too easy to exploit that territory and the book would have suffered for it
Was it difficult emulating his writing style without becoming cliché? How did you guys approach wording it?
A: Will absolutely nailed it. He was able to really capture Hunter’s spoken mannerisms and voice and use them to help me emote his feelings in a very naturalistic way. Might sound like I’m stating the obvious in that last sentence, but think about it. That is no mean feat! I can only imagine that for Will as a writer it must have been like my trying to draw in another persons art style, or imagine trying to write in another person’s handwriting.
W:I was worried about that before I started the project, but actually it wasn’t too hard. Once you’ve worked out his vocabulary and the real rhythm of his prose (which is closer to the rhythm of his spoken voice than to Raul Duke’s staccato bark), then it becomes a question of intent. Hunter was a very principled man, and by sticking within the boundaries of those principles you avoid most of the pitfalls.
Actually, there’s also a quote from the Rum Diary which really helped me get a feel for his relationship with language, and here it is, “Most people who deal in words don’t have much faith in them and I am no exception—especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they’re scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest of a fool to use them with any confidence.”
For me there was definitely a focus on his initial struggle to make it as a successful journalist and writer. Was there a conscious effort to move away from focusing on all the obvious stuff like drink, drugs and ‘Fear and Loathing…’?
A: Yes indeed, that is ground well trodden! Of course, we do cover those in the course of the book as avoiding them just wouldn’t ring true. But if that helps to present Hunter in a familiar way to most (see the book’s cover), then I like to think that we use it as an entry point in order to then peel back the curtain on this very interesting, layered and sensitive individual.
W: Yeah, there was. I mean there’s a fair amount of booze and drug abuse in the book, but there was so much more than that to the guy. It would have been too easy to exploit that territory and the book would have suffered for it. As for why we look at his youth and early career. I’d say because his writing reflected more of his actual character in those early days and that the process of writing a biography is about unearthing and exploring your subject’s personality.
The art of Ralph Steadman is heavily intertwined with Thompson, how does the book match up to this? Did you aim to do something completely different?
A: Absolutely! As an admirer of Steadman’s work for many years, it wouldn’t have felt right to try to riff on his work or exploit it for effect in Gonzo. Obviously there is plenty of opportunity during the course of the book to have done so, but why do a poor man’s interpretation of his fine work, and also in the process do myself a huge disservice? For me this was an opportunity to do good comics, with strong storytelling, to support and deliver Will’s fantastic script, and not get in the way of the story.
W: I love Ralph Steadman’s art, but the works he collaborated on with Hunter are primarily satirical. Very early on we decided to go in a different direction and I’m glad that we did, because Anthony’s particular brand of… I guess its like a kind of expressive realism maybe, anyway his work was a better fit for what is a relatively sensitive biography.
Do you reckon Hunter S. Thompson would’ve had a blog…or even Twitter? Or do you think he’d be generally horrified by the state of ‘churnalism’ around today?
A: He would most certainly know how to get the most out of 140 characters.
W: Hunter’s possible views on ‘churnalism’? I really don’t know. Aside from the word itself, ‘churnalism’, which sounds like something Piers Morgan might spout, I’d imagine he’d have found the phenomenon too vast to properly parse. Hunter once said of the Internet that, “There is a line between democratization of journalism and every man a journalist. You can’t really believe what you read in the papers, but there is at least some spectrum of reliability,” and then again, “I have an email address. No one knows it. But I wouldn’t check it anyway, because it’s just too fucking much. You know, it’s the volume. The Internet is probably the first wave of people who have figured out a different way to catch up with TV – if you can’t be on TV, well at least you can reach 45 million people (on the Internet).”
So I suppose you could say he didn’t particularly approve of the Internet, but I doubt he’d be horrified at the state of play today.
Do you think there is such a thing as true gonzo journalism any more?
A: Is there much demand for it nowadays? I guess we are so information obsessed that perhaps not. Which is a shame, from a creative standpoint.
W: No. There are writers like Will Self who use elements of gonzo to inform their work, but I can’t think of a purist gonzo journalist.
Finally, your favourite Hunter S. Thompson trivia? Urban legend or not…
A: Isn’t he alleged to have tied boxing gloves to his Doberman’s feet as they kept digging up money he’d stashed about his ranch? Why didn’t we cover that in the book?
W: I love the stories from his letters in The Proud Highway, but if I had to pick just one story, it’d be him flying in to Saigon on the eve of the Hanoi offensive with $30,000 dollars in illegal dollar bills gaffer-taped to his body. Partly because he did to make sure his fellow journalists weren’t stranded, and partly because it’s just a ridiculously ballsy move.
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