Ralph Steadman

Ralph Steadman is a British illustrator and cartoonist, born in 1936 and brought up partly in north Wales. He studied at East Ham Technical College and the London College of Printing, then drew for Punch and Private Eye, among other publications. Anyone who has seen a Steadman page knows it at once, even without a signature.

His line looks thrown rather than drawn: splashes of ink, shaky outlines, faces that seem to be coming apart. The humor is cruel and aimed upward, at politicians, war and hypocrisy. Away from journalism he has illustrated Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island and Animal Farm. He has also written and drawn his own books, including studies of Sigmund Freud and Leonardo da Vinci.

His name is tied to Hunter S. Thompson. They began working together in 1970. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ran in Rolling Stone in November 1971 and came out as a Random House book in 1972. Steadman's pictures of the journalist Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr. Gonzo are now part of the book's identity, as much as Thompson's prose. A signed original from the book has gone to auction at Christie's. Steadman also drew for Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.

Start with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the book listed here. Read it for Thompson's text, and notice how much the drawings add to its fever. If you like his work as a solo illustrator, his edition of Orwell's Animal Farm shows the same savage energy applied to a fable.