Hunter S. Thompson's Life Story Told In Graphic Form
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/11/29/hunter-s-thompsons-life-story-told-in-graphic-form/
November 29, 2010
By Kirk Lake
Comic biographies are not a new phenomenon. As far back as the 1940s,
DC Comics had a line of "Real Fact Comics" giving histories of
celebrities like Jimmy Stewart or Jack London. Putting famous faces
into comic strips has always been a way to try to broaden the appeal
to non comic readers, from Batman meeting the Beatles to President
Obama hanging out with Spider-Man.
But several recent graphic biographies have pushed the creative
boundaries even further. Reinhard Kleist's Johnny Cash biography, "I
See A Darkness," is a stark, expressionistic retelling of the myths
and amphetamine madness of the country legend. SelfMadeHero, a small
independent British company, originally formed to release an
innovative series of manga adaptations of Shakespeare plays,
published the Cash book.
The publisher is planning an English translation of Catherine Muller
and Jose-Luis Bocquet's award-winning "Kiki," a graphic biography of
Man Ray's muse Kiki de Montparnasse, as well as "Baby's In Black," a
book that shines a light on the Beatles in Hamburg. Before these
comes "Gonzo" by British writer/artist team Will Bingley and Anthony
Hope-Smith, a graphic retelling of the life of the great American
iconoclast Hunter S Thompson.
Hope-Smith's art is beautifully realized. Thompson is rendered not as
a the hedonistic outlaw superman of legend but as a twitchy and
surprisingly sensitive human being. The artist wanted to get behind
the perceived notion of Thompson as a gun-slinging, drug-gobbling
maniac: "Thompson caricatured himself to the point of self-parody,
and it sadly became the perception among his many detractors that
this was indeed the man himself. We wanted to reflect that aspect of
his character, where relevant, but to also peel back the curtain to
show the man."
Thompson, like fellow writers William S. Burroughs and Charles
Bukowski, has been responsible for inspiring scores of dire
substandard copyists. But Bingley script avoids the clichés much as
Hope-Smith avoided the obvious pitfall of aping Ralph Steadman's
iconic ink-splash illustrations that decorated so many of Thompson's
own books. The narrative is tight.
Those readers who are familiar with Thompson's work will see certain
scenes played out from a new perspective. "One of the benefits of
Thompson's autobiographical or semi-autobiographical work," explains
Bingley, "is that the events he documented are based in truth, so you
often find a secondary source to balance an objective view. Of course
everyone is painfully aware of Hunter's persona in popular culture
and to an extent the Gonzo mythos is a terrible mis-representation of the man."
"Visually, the trick was to not shy away from the 'Fear and Loathing
Hunter,'" explains Hope-Smith. "Rather we could have fun playing with
him but then be ready to dial it right back in order to show his
humanity through subtlety of expression and body language. We tried
to create a balance between the man and his performance."
"Gonzo" provides new insight and understanding of Thompson, revealing
a portrait that is paradoxically more real and less cartoonish than
either Bill Murray or Johnny Depp's take on the man.
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