HST: Yeah, we were down there at the Derby. Davison went to college on a football scholarship as a linebacker -- he encouraged Ralph to do a sketch of him, sitting in a restaurant in Louisville -- and Ralph did it. I thought we were in serious trouble. At that point, I maced the waiter at the restaurant and we had to leave.

ED.: Mace? You maced him?

HST: Yeah, I maced the waiter. He was a surly bastard, and I figured a shot of Mace would be good for him -- and for us, too.

ED.: What provoked you?

HST: It was just an argument we got into with the waiter. I'm not sure how it developed. I maced him right after Ralph had done this drawing of my brother. All of a sudden we had something new to cope with. In fact, we had to leave the restaurant immediately.

ED.: Ralph's kinda like Clark Kent, you know. He has that mild-mannered disguise.

HST: Yes. I wonder what would show on his chest if we could do a drawing of him ripping back the shirt. . . maybe an adder or an iguana or a Gila monster. . .

ED.: Yes. The kind that sits still for hours and then kills you.

HST: With a flip of the tongue. . . yes, I think a Gila monster would be appropriate. A gila monster with a ballpoint pen for a tongue.

ED.: Ralph works in ball-point?

HST: I'm not sure. . . As I recall, he uses chalk and big, bright pencils; and when he's carrying those big pads around with him, it sets him off from almost anybody he's near.

ED.: Do people go up and look at what he's doing?

HST: No, because he works so fast and he concentrates so intensely. It would be like harassing a TV cameraman. There's something about Steadman that warns people not to interfere with him when he's working.

ED.: Why do you like to work with him? Would you rather work with Ralph than a photographer?

HST: Definitely. Photographers generally get in the way of stories. Steadman has a way of becoming part of the story. And I like to see things through his eyes. He gives me a perspective that I wouldn't normally have because he's shocked at things I tend to take for granted. Photographers just run around sucking up anything they can focus on and don't talk much about what they're doing. Photographers don't participate in the story. They all can act, but very few of them think. Steadman thinks more like a writer; I can communicate with him. He comes to grips with a story sort of the same way I do. . . I don't mean that we always agree on what somebody looks like. But we can go to the Watergate hearings, for instance, and he'll be shaken and repulsed by something that happens and once he points it out to me, I'll agree with him.