Excerpt From ‘Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson?’
On Feb. 20, 2005, author Hunter S. Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at his home in Woody Creek, Colo. His son Juan and daughter-in-law Jennifer were in the next room. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun.
Very soon afterward, San Francisco’s own Warren Hinckle started work on a memorial volume, soliciting tributes from a vast array of Hunter’s friends and collaborators. Hinckle had first worked with Thompson in 1970. As co-founder and editor of the magazine Scanlan’s Monthly, he matched illustrator Ralph Steadman with Thompson to produce “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved” (1970), the first work of Gonzo journalism.
Naturally, Warren felt he should also write a memorial essay for the book, which became a personal history of San Francisco and his adventures with Hunter — a virtual book within the book. Warren continued to revise this memoir until his own death in 2016. Linda Corso, his longtime companion, said, “the only deadline for the book was Warren’s death. He had no intention of it being published before then.”
The book, laced with pages of illustrations, photographs and cartoons, has finally been published as “Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson?” — a question derived from Warren’s instinct for conspiracy, but also suggestive that forces in contemporary culture played a hand in Hunter’s demise.
This excerpt from the book describes another genius of media: Howard Gossage, the legendary San Francisco advertising executive whose style and wit influenced generations of creative spirits and ad campaigns. And Hunter, naturally, plays a small part in the story.
[ THIS IS WHY NEWSPAPERS ARE DYING ]
Scanlan’s masthead read, Publisher: The Late Howard Gossage. This was more than
