Iconic cover of the first edition reproduced for its 50th anniversary, featuring the cartoon art of Thompson’s usual collaborator as illustrator, Ralph Steadman. It was a highlight seeing The Simpsons use these cartoon figures in a throwaway visual gag driving away from Vegas as Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders drive to it

(9) HUNTER S. THOMPSON –

FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1971)

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold…And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats”

One of my favorite opening lines of any book. Also a book that gave me my role model of a lawyer – Dr Gonzo, always referred to as “my attorney”.

And what drugs began to take hold, you ask? Well, take your pick…

“The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug-collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.”

This was ostensibly to do a story on “assignment for Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption” on a motorcycle race in Las Vegas. What Thompson wrote instead was a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was “aggressively rejected” by the magazine but became the basis for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, including a second trip to Vegas to attend, ironically enough, a drug-enforcement conference. I think they packed more drugs in the trunk for that.

What emerged was the psychedelic odyssey of the book’s subtitle, A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream, with Thompson in his thinly disguised persona as Raoul Duke. Not pictured or captioned – the motorcycle race he was originally paid to write about in Las Vegas. Just kidding – I remember it briefly in there somewhere, glimpsed through the desert dust swirling as they try to find it. They do manage to attend that drug-enforcement conference, however.

Which pretty much encapsulates the gonzo journalism of Thompson’s creation – writing the hell what you feel like but with snark and style.

I liked the film as well, starring Johnny Depp (who befriended Thompson in real life) and directed by Terry Gilliam.

“His literary influence, outlandish persona and unique look (particularly the aviator cool shades and the ubiquitous cigarette in a TarGard holder) led him to become a subject of affectionate parody…Characters based on Thompson include Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan, Uncle Duke from Doonesbury, Duke Rollo from Aberrant, Col. Hunter Gathers on The Venture Bros., and Dale Gribble from King of the Hill”.

If you hadn’t guessed so far, “Thompson had a lifelong love for alcohol, drugs, and firearms, and an iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”