Ralph Steadman – illustratör

‘We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive …”’Hunter S. Thompson is roaring down the desert highway to Las Vegas with his attorney, the Samoan, to find the dark side of the American Dream. Armed with a drug arsenal of stupendous proportions, the duo engage in a surreal succession of chemically enhanced confrontations with casino operators, police officers and assorted Middle Americans.This stylish reissue of Hunter S. Thompson’s iconic masterpiece, a controversial bestseller when it appeared in 1971, features the brilliant Ralph Steadman illustrations of the original. It brings to a new generation the hallucinatory humour and nightmare terror of Hunter S. Thompson’s musings on the collapse of the American Dream.

Provocateurs Will Self and Ralph Steadman join forces in this post-millennial meditation on the vexed relationship between psyche and place in a globalised world, bringing together for the first time the very best of their ''Psychogeography'' columns for the Independent. The introduction, ''Walking to New York'', is both a prelude to the verbal and visual essays that make up this extraordinary collaboration, and a revealing exploration of the split in Self''s Jewish-American-British psyche and its relationship to the political geography of the post-9/11 world. Ranging from the Scottish Highlands to Istanbul and from Morocco to Ohio, Will Self''s engaging and disturbing vision is perfectly counter-pointed by Ralph Steadman''s edgy and beautiful artwork.

Will Self and Ralph Steadman join forces once again in a further post-millennial meditation on the vexed relationship of psyche and place in a globalised world; Psycho Too brings together a second helping of their very best words and pictures from ''Psychogeography'', the columns they contributed to the Independent for half a decade. The introduction, ''Journey Through Britain'' is a new extended essay by Self, accompanied by Steadman''s inimitable images. It tells of how Self journeyed to Dubai, that Götterdammerung of the contemporary built environment, in order to walk the length of the artificial Britain-shaped island, in the offshore luxury housing development known as ''The World''.Ranging from Istanbul to Los Angeles and from the crumbling coastline of East Yorkshire to the adamantine heads of Easter Island, Will Self''s engaging and disturbing vision is once again perfectly counter-pointed by Ralph Steadman''s edgy and dazzling artwork.

A very funny take on the contortions a grandparent goes through to please a grandchild.When Oliver visits Grumpy, Grumpy twists himself into a funny position to amuse his grandson. ''AGAIN!'' shouts Oliver, so Grumpy does something even more extraordinary. ''AGAIN!'' comes the refrain. And Grumpy complies. Again and again and again, until he''s twisted himself slightly too far ...With eye-watering yet hilarious detail, cartoonist Ralph Steadman captures the pain and delights of grandparenthood with merciless accuracy.