Hunter S Thompson

By sizemore Last edited 229 months ago
Hunter S Thompson
hunter.jpg

Sometime on Sunday evening Hunter S Thompson took his own life with a gunshot to the head at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado. That's as far away from London as you can imagine but we feel that we would be lacking as writers if we failed to mention the good doctor's passing.

Through our formative years Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas provided a unique window on America and later we began to understand politics through Thompson's autopsies of the American political process. Our inadequacies at understanding American sports did not stop us from enjoying Hunter's writing on the subject and we got an extra kick out of reading Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis knowing all too well who it was that Spider Jerusalem was channelling.

Only last week Hunter was ringing Bill Murray in the dead of night to invent a new sport in what turned out to be his final column.

Some people will only know Hunter through a certain movie and if you are already a fan of the Terry Gilliam/Johnny Depp version of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas then we would urge you to grab a multiregional DVD player and watch the Criterion Collection edition of the movie. It includes a wonderful 1978 BBC documentary that follows Hunter and Ralph Steadman on The Road to Hollywood.

As good as that DVD is the real Hunter S Thompson is to be found in the books.

Gothamist, SFist, LAist and DCist have already paid tribute but before you go and read what they had to say let us treat you to one of our very favourite recent Hunter comments:

"I never thought that I would ever see a president worse than Richard Nixon. But he is the worst president in American history, this one. Because he is the dumbest. And because he has destroyed, in four years, what it took two centuries to build up. He has taken this country from a prosperous nation at peace to a dead-broke nation at war. We are losing this stupid, fraudulent war in Iraq and every nation in the world despises us, except for a handful of corrupt Brits, like that simpering little whore, Tony Blair."

We miss him already.

Last Updated 21 February 2005