Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

This is an excellent adaption of the Hunter S. Thompson book. I am a huge fan of the book and the movie because the book is great and the movie perfectly captures what I had pictured in my head. Now for the same thing to happen with another medium is just wonderful and almost unbelievable. The art really fits the zaniness of the story and the entire package feels like it is worth the price. You get a quality hardcover with some neat gossy effects and the pages feel nice and thick. If you love these characters you will no doubt love this adaptation.

I liked this, and I’m a little surprised how much.I think that Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is unique. Thompson himself never really captured its extreme and unrestrained spirit again in his other writings (although I think "Fear and Loathing in Elko" and his article on the death of Nixon, "He was a Crook,” come pretty close). And the attempts to translate the book to film haven’t been all that successful.That’s why I was skeptical that the translation to graphic novel would work out — it just seems like the proverbial unlikelihood of catching lightning in a bottle. But it really does work. Troy Little’s art expresses the crazed extremes of the book about as genuinely as you could hope. I really did feel the freedom in it, just like reading Thompson.It’s no substitute for reading the original. If you haven’t read it, don’t read this first. The book is still a unique experience, the real thing. But this is a great companion to it.I’m not even sure what the experience of Little’s book would be like without having read the original. It may not stand by itself. But it does carry the story, in a way that Ralph Steadman’s illustrations, as great as they are, couldn’t do on their own.I enjoyed Thompson the way I haven’t for a long time. This brought back the experience. Thompson really did “stomp the terra,” and I’m thankful for Troy Little’s ability to capture it.

Every page is fantastic. I like the artwork and I like that I can turn to any page and immediately hear Johnny Depp as Hunter Thompson in my mind. Comedy gold. I was a little disappointed that "I am Ahab" was no where to be found, but it is abridged. Highly recommend if you're a fan of Thompson and/or either of the movie adaptations.

I read the book back when it came out and then was super disappointed with the Bill Murray and later Depp attempts at film adaption. The only right actor could have been Jack Nicholson. But this graphic novel is perfect. The artist was completely in sync with the artistry of Thompson. At least without my having known him personally.

I've literally never written a product review on here before but I wanted to add a couple of thoughts I didn't see in any reviews for this product.The big one is that this adaptation is *not* unabridged, which is particularly noticeable near the end when more or less for the sake of "pruning the vine" of the even more bizarre tangents Thompson goes on, Troy Little decides to pare down the events and dialogue to that directly related to the main story and cuts down some of the longer monologues.You can notice this earlier as well, as the best passage in the novel, the "Wave Speech," is noticeably trimmed down for the sake of conciseness. Little focuses on the section of the monologue specifically about the protest movement, as well of course the end where Thompson makes the "wave" metaphor. However he notably leaves out the early part of the speech where Thompson notes he's particularly nostalgic for the ability to go anywhere in the Bay Area and find people to do drugs with - the protest movement is part of that feeling as well but it's secondary to the sense of community he felt from those drug experiences.That omission is really important because the central theme of the novel is that whereas in the 60s Thompson and many counterculture people formed a community around drugs and personal freedom, Thompson and Oscar Zeta Acosta (the real life "Dr. Gonzo") do drugs alone to separate themselves from the society they find around them, totally alienating and hostile to the idea of personal freedom.Aside from the lessening of the literary strength the omissions create, the full-blown craziness of the novel really does need to be experienced for the reader to have the full experience - "Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride," as it were.That said, the art style is perfect for the novel and usually does an amazing job "grounding" the story a little more than the classic Steadman art does while simultaneously not holding back on the bizarre hallucinatory aspects of the story. To nitpick that slightly though, I kind of wish in some areas Little went the 110% and *really* went full-hog into the weirdness. Like for example the end of the classic "reptile scene" Little briefly shows what the scene looks like to the outside observer without the filter of Thompson's acid haze, and I think that lessens the impact just a tiny bit. Similarly near the end when Thompson is alone in the Flamingo and is surveying the wreckage in the room, the novel and the comic's text describes, e.g., that the floor is six inches deep in soap bars, grapefruit rinds, broken glass, etc., but the image only shows some of those objects scattered on the floor, and certainly not six inches worth. I get that Little is going for a more realistic tone but again I think only by going all-in on the narrative insanity can you really capture the pure essence on the novel.These are all relatively tiny nitpicks, and my only real criticism also applies to the novel itself - it ends extremely abruptly. There's not a lot of wrap-up at the end, and it feels more like the end of a magazine piece than the end of a novel, which perhaps makes more sense since it really is a magazine article turned into a novel. I do think Little does a better job putting one last exclamation point on the story than Thompson actually did.So I would rate this a solid 9/10 but since I can't do that here I'll give four stars just for a more critical perspective. I do think this is almost certainly going to be the best adaptation of this novel, or really any Hunter S. Thompson work, we'll get until there's a completely unabridged animated film of this novel. But I would strongly suggest reading the novel in its complete weirdness first.

I'm very happy with this book. As an avid HST fan, I was mortified I had never heard of it, but now I have one in great condition in my library. :)

Love the original book. The movie and this graphic version have left out my favorite part though. Neat art, not as cool as the original, of course...

If you liked the book you're going to dig this. I wouldn't read this INSTEAD of the book, but fans will love this. The art is great, the writing follows the book perfectly, and the overall quality is excellent - the paper, binding and hard cover are of great quality.I gave this to an old friend for his birthday. He's a huge fan of the original book and was absolutely thrilled to get this. I want one for myself!Recommended.