The second cover, for Part Two of “Fear and Loathing,” the magazine chose the picture of the 250-pound Texan necking with his wife in the back row. Which makes you wonder what the HST Estate thinks its function actually IS, other than collecting royalties on existing publications. But the rider was completely attached to his motorbike, almost swallowed up by his gearbox. And excised chapters of F & L IN LAS VEGAS - that Depp has read and rates as highly as the rest of the book -have still never been published. There was also a landscape, a bit of sky. The idea of the cover was a motorbike flying over the journalists in a bar. The drawings were what we call A-1 size over here - that’s American letter-size paper, times eight. I was using a pen, although sometimes I’d whack the art with a brush, when I wanted a big flash of ink, because it explodes on the paper.
No pencils, otherwise you lose the virgin moment. It’s like arriving at a cafe or a truck stop: You don’t go any further. When I arrived at something I wanted to draw.
I sent in the package to Rolling Stone, and as Hunter told me in a letter, “They flipped, man.” I had never heard of Rolling Stone - it wasn’t widely available in England yet. Then Hunter remembered me and sent me the manuscript. They were supposed to illustrate the article with things they brought home, like coat-check tickets. Hunter was traveling with Oscar Acosta, who was a lawyer - which was quite a good thought. I realized later that Rhode Island was a dress rehearsal for “ Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” It would have been impossible for me to go on the “Fear and Loathing” trip. It made me realize that something powerful could happen in a drawing - but you had to be in the right frame of mind for it. There was a lovely Irish guy there I’d been talking to before the trip, He said, “You look fucking awful.” I ended up sleeping for twenty-four hours.Īll my feelings came out six months later in London: I was purging my mind after a nasty experience and being sick on paper. I went back to New York barefoot and gave a cabbie all the money I had, which was twenty-three dollars, to take me to an Irish pub in Times Square.