Raygun 1996

Kevin P. Simonson gave TGTH kind permission to use this article he wrote, "The Wrath of Ralph", for the June/July 1996 issue of Raygun. It has Soundgarden on the cover and features numerous illustrations from Animal Farm.

Does Ralph Steadman wield the most vicious pen in modern illustrating? Kevin P. Simonson talks with him about his newest project, a 50th Anniversary issue of George Orwell's Animal Farm, and learns you don't get tears of laughter without tears of rage.

The sun was slowly sinking behind the snow-capped mountains that surround Woody Creek, Colorado, when the explosion occurred. No one was injured except, of course, for the blow-up sex doll which was strapped to an idling John Deere tractor which was strapped to a propane bottle which had an exploding target taped to it. The propane bottle was punctured by a bullet aimed with masterful abandon by journalist, marksman, and cult-hero Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The tractor went up like an H-bomb and could be heard in Aspen some half-dozen miles away. The left arm of the blow-up sex doll was found a few days later dangling from a branch of a pine tree by neighbor and ex-Eagle member Don Henley.

This explosion in May of '95 was how gonzo's reigning tag team champions - Ralph Steadman and Hunter S. Thompson - celebrated the 25th anniversary of their first collaboration, an infamous piece of sports and mint-julep journalism entitled "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved". Since that fateful weekend in 1970, Steadman's notorious scrawlings have graced the pages of such diverse classics such as Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Great Shark Hunt, and The Curse of Lono, as well as his own scathing characterization of the former colonies, America. This summer, he has devoted his talents to the re-release of one of most prescient novels ever written in the English language, a biting and crafty and horrorific work book that even the brutal Dr. Thompson must admire - a special 50th Anniversary edition of George Orwell's Animal Farm.

From his expansive Georgian mansion nestled in the hills of Kent, England, Steadman has created his own distinctive style of expression. When Steadman lifts his brush or pen, he "marks his territory" as he says, with blood-like splotches and splatters of ink and paint.

Steadman's trademark is to pull nightmarish, Hieronymous Bosch-like creatures out of his obviously-liberated imagination, set them to violent motion by the splotches and splatters, then circumscribe and anchor the piece with very anal, concise lines and circles. The latter derived from his desire to be an engineer while in his teens. After leaving school at the age of 16, young Ralph became obsessed with building model airplanes and - naively assuming that this is what real engineers did - he became an apprentice engineer for a short period of time, until disenchantment arrived.

"I hated going to school," he recalls. "It was a terribly unhappy period of life. There were sadistic head nuns that used to humiliate and berate children. Education should be about the arousing of curiosity - and make you want to learn - not the dreadful process that it is."

From these inauspicious beginnings, Steadman developed a loathing for authority that would fueled his work. Steadman rarely acknowledges politicians (or journalists for that matter), and when he does draw a King, Prime Minister or a President, he will often only depict them from the waist down; his way of deflating pumped-up egos. Both he and THompson have nurtured a special career-long obsession with form President Richard Milhouse Nixon, however, and he has been known to draw the man everyone loves to hate with all his body parts intact. Steadman's art was first unleashed on an unsuspecting public while doing cartoons for local newspapers in London when he was 23. His sometimes perverse, always irreverent renderings are now showcased in over 50 books, on British postage stamps, movie posters (including the English cult favorite Withnall and I) and the label for one American beer.

The label for Road Dog Ale isn't washed by fresh mountain streams or pedigreed by historical coats of arms. Rather, a fanged and perhaps rabid dog scowls at the consumer through dark blue sunglasses and sarcastically snarls, "Good Beer, No Shit". A Road Dog is prison slang for "cellmate" and this mad dog is sporting the standard-issue black and white work shirt. The label was another Steadman/Thompson production. However, this show had a short run. The Liquor Enforcement Division of the Colorado Department of Revenue yanked the bottles off the shelves because of consumer-unfriendly language. Apparently, most products at your local Safeway won't have the word "shit" on the label. The new, improved label will read: "Good Beer, No Censorship".

Steadman paid tribute to his own alter-egos in a most unusual way. Before writing and illustrating his book Sigmund Freud, Steadman paid a visit to Freud's study and actually laid down on the floor where Freud's famous couch once sat. He stared at the ceiling and imagined that Freud and he were in a session. An image of Freud peering down at a disturbed, hefty-headed Steadman eventually became the cover of the opus. (The artist's head really is quite large as well, topping the scales at what I'd estimate to be around 27 pounds. The average human head weighs 17 pounds.)

The second book, I Leonardo, Ralph's personal favorite collection of sketches, won him a coveted W. H. Smith Illustration Award in 1987.

At 59, Steadman hasn't slowed his pace.

"I hit the studio every day about 10:30, and then I'll work 'til one on something - you know, whatever it is. It might just be absolutely looking for things to do. I find that I work best after lunch, in the afternoon from about three on, and after that it's sundown time; I'll need a drink," he confesses.

This "looking for things to do" has led to several new outlets for Steadman's savage satire. He recently discovered that Polaroid snapshots can be distorted by warming, smearing and smudging the emulsion as the pictures are developing. He has dubbed these creations "Paranoids", and an exhibition of them in England included images of an ostrich-like Prince Charles and an eerie portrait composed of the blended visages of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

"I think the whole thing with my friendship with Hunter is that there is a certain chemistry, even though he is different than me - it's like chalk and cheese there. He has got a way of inspiring a kind of loyalty in me, even though I sometimes hate him for it."

And what would Steadman's life be like if he hadn't hooked up with Hunter 25 years ago?

"Well, my mother was an extremely gentle person, considerate. My father was quite humorous. But it took Hunter to throw out of me something that I didn't know was there...a violent streak, and I don't mean violent to hit people. Hunt was the one, wasn't he? No one could take his place."