Ralph
Steadman is possibly most well-known for his collaboration with Hunter S.
Thompson on the Gonza journalism piece Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Steadman has also used his humor (often quite dark humor at that), loose ink
work complete with ink blots and sprays, weird characters, and tell-it-like-it-is
attitude (…or at least tell-it-like-I-see-it attitude) for political cartoons, illustrations
for books such as Alice in Wonderland (at least as drug induced as Fear
and Loathing) and Animal Farm, portraits, and alcoholic drink labels. Steadman
has also published a number books including Still Life with Bottle: Whisky
According to Ralph Steadman, Tales of Weirrd, The Ralph Steadman
Book of Dogs, Untrodden Grapes, and Grapes of Ralph.
Steadman’s
most recent publication is Extinct Boids, a collaborative effort with
Ceri Levy, the film producer and director of Bananaz, about the Gorillaz, and Blur:Starshaped. Levy was working on a documentary about birding,
birders, and how birds influence society. Levy was interested in creating an
exhibition called Ghosts of Gone Birds, in which he would curate renditions of
birds by contemporary artists. When he asked Steadman for an illustration it
turned into more than 100 illustrations that evolved into their Extinct Boids.
The book is a collection of illustrations of extinct birds, both fictional and
non, and diary-style entries between the two authors.
Two
things in particular stand out about this book: that it is comic, and that it
includes fictional species. A comic approach to serious topics is characteristic
of Steadman’s work, but also a new way of approaching serious environmental
topics such as extinction. Steadman and Levy note that if they can bring people
to the subject in a fun way, maybe they can motivate the reader/viewer to work
on solutions for living species. Including fictional species is a type of Gonzo
Journalism. It is an interpretation of the “truth” without claiming to be “fact”.
The authors also mention that the imagined creatures, in part, allude to all
the species of the past that we do not, and will never know.
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Dodo, Cover of Extinct Boids, Steadman & Levy
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The Great Extinct Auk, Extinct Boids, Steadman
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From Extinct Boids, Steadman
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From Extinct Boids, Steadman
From Extinct Boids, Steadman |
