The grotesque and the gold

Do you wish Hunter and you were doing a "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" book?

We're [Steadman and his wife, Anna] supposed to go up to Aspen, and then go from Aspen [with Hunter] up to Reno, Nev., and cover an anarchist festival. I said to Hunter, "Why don't I just do it from Aspen, not go to the anarchist festival?" I don't want to go to a fucking anarchist festival. They may blow me up! Just for fun, that would be part of the festival: "Hey, there's a limey guy! He's not even from America."

If you go to Aspen, Hunter might blow you up.

He won't, no. He tried. He nearly did, actually.

What happened?

The story is I set him up with some ink pots hung from string in front of pieces of paper and had him shoot them with a .410 double-barreled shotgun. He got interested in it because when it hit the bottle -- "psssssshhhh" -- it did wonderful things. He was making artwork with the gun. And then he got so interested in it, because the ink from the blast of the pellets onto the paper decided to run down, and he rushed forward to stop the color from going any further. He was making an aesthetic judgment, and he threw the gun [on the ground] and it still had a bloody bullet in the bloody barrel and it went off. It went through the petrol can of his John Deere tractor. He looked mortified. He was.

You know recently he tried to hit a bear; he tried to scare it, and he hit his aide. So that was a problem, and it worried him terribly. But he says, "I am one of the few people who should have guns." And I think he's one of the few people who shouldn't have guns; everybody else should have guns. He really is funny like that. He's dangerous when he's got a gun, but he's also good with a gun. But guns are hellish things, anyway, so I don't approve.

Some people might see your work and imagine a menacing individual behind the pen. But you're really a softie, aren't you? You're great with kids.

Oh, yeah. I love people. But I'm afraid of what they do to each other. I think people are disgusting to one another, and I think they're two-faced about it.

I like people. People are surprised: They think I obviously hate people or I can't be much fun or I'm a fucking old grump. But, OK, I'm grumpy sometimes; we're all grumpy sometimes. And I'm not sorry to be grumpy sometimes, because some people ask for it.

It hasn't been released in the United States yet, so tell me: What is your new children's book, "little.com," about?

[In a quickened, storytelling voice] It's about a dot that lives in our computer. When we switch it off, it disappears. It goes to see the Duchess of Amalfi. And the Duchess of Amalfi doesn't give him tea, she gives him ink. He loves ink; he drinks ink. It loves to roll down the hill after it's been to see the duchess in her castle on the hill. But at the bottom of the hill is the Duke of Bogshot with his White Army. They run for cover, because they're going to get their uniforms splashed with this ink.

It gives me a great opportunity to do all this splashing around and make a multitude of characters, which are all a dot being something else: being a tiger, being something that flies, being a complete mess because it tried to fly and it fell, it crash-landed, and it looked a proper mess after that. And so did the army, because he splattered the army when he came down. I've animated the dot. I've given the dot a character -- or many characters.

And then the Duchess of Amalfi eventually falls in love with the Duke of Bogshot and his White Army, and he asks her if she'd wear his mother's wedding dress, which is a black, regimental, barbed-wire wedding dress. Which is funny; for me it's funny, anyway. And they get married. And it finishes on that happy note: balloons up from the castle and the army standing in a trench behind him, and the duke in white with the duchess in black with a castellated front to her wedding dress, like a militarist thing. But he's all splattered, he's covered in splats. He's very proud with his mustache and the tall hat with the peak.

And so it's a fun book -- that's all it is. And I had somebody write and say, "We can't publish this in America. I like Steadman's work, but this is far too slight." And I felt, well, it's a children's book, for Christ's sake! What do you mean, it's "too slight"? What do you want to give children? Give them Schopenhauer, then, OK?

It pisses me off when somebody says, "We can't." They're looking for a goddamn excuse to say "No," you know?

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