"This piece exists as a fun exercise of me being influenced by the ideas, words and pictures from some pretty radical creative thinkers. Most of the characters in the piece are manifestations of Ralph Steadman’s reactions to Hunter S. Thompson’s wild Gonzo persona and my imaginings of how they would all huddle together around a core value in Hunter’s work – the eternal search for truth.
When I created this piece I was inspired by the double-feature articles I was writing for Juxtapoz last year, a cover feature on Steadman and a piece on Hunter. I researched for about three months, reading everything I could find, looking at all the images, articles, documentaries and interviews I could find. I collected editions of both guys’ books as part of the research, trying to find first printings or hard to find books of Steadman’s art so I could hold something with that original energy – it might sound silly but I’m old fashioned in some ways. So while I was doing the research and reading, I was also coming up with ideas and did a decent sized piece about the collaborative madness that Steadman and Hunter shared." - Nathan Spoor
