For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Ralph Steadman, you’re about to get familiar. You see, Steadman is a British cartoonist and illustrator, perhaps best known for his work with Hunter S. Thompson. You’ll find his inimitable illustrative style scattered through many of Thompson’s articles and books, most famous of which, of course, being Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.
Well, after getting hooked on a binge watch of Breaking Bad – “I watched the Breaking Bad whole series in two weeks and now suffer withdrawal symptoms.” – as we all have in our time, Steadman took to recreating some its key characters in his own unique style. As it was with Thompson’s manic and drug fuelled storytelling and Gonzo journalism, Steadman’s unhinged style suits the cast of Breaking Bad perfectly. Drawing out the blue stuff in each paranoid and tweaked line.
It wasn’t just to appease his Breaking Bad withdrawals though. When putting these pieces together, Steadman had hoped to bring out and represent the shows depth of story;
“At first, I thought ‘this series is going to be all about death and desecration,’ but instead became a more complex landscape of human relationships.
“I hope I put something of these feelings into the portraits that I made of the characters, which were landscapes in themselves. An irony in the subject of crystal meth is how beautifully it resembles the desert sky.”
It might not be be new Bad but at least at least it’s sonething to keep us going until the first season of Better Call Saul comes out.
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