Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) was an American journalist and writer, famous for his Fear and Loathing articles and inventing Gonzo journalism. “Buy the ticket, take the ride”, was kind of Thompson’s life motto – he would throw himself into crazy situations head first, often becoming the protagonist in his own stories. Some of the ‘rides’ Thompson went on include: joining the air force, hitch-hiking across America, working in Puerto Rico and Brazil, experiencing hippie culture in San Francisco, living with the Hell’s Angels biker gang for a year (and getting the shit kicked out of him from said biker gang), running for sheriff in Colorado, traveling to Saigon just as it was falling at the end of the Vietnam War, going on the campaign trail in 72 and, most famously, heading to Las Vegas carrying “two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.” Despite his epic drug and alcohol binges, Thompson produced some of the best writing of the 20th century, becoming a voice for the counter-culture movement in the 70s.

-I like to describe the style I used for this comic as the offspring of Ralph Steadman and Quentin Blake, but if the child was born with no arms and had to draw with its feet.

-Steadman is a brilliant cartoonist and was Thompson’s frequent collaborator and sidekick. He has such a dynamic, energetic and violent style that matched perfectly with Thompson’s words.