The key to gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson taught us, was to brandish an ego only as robust as one’s life was unique. To intertwine one’s self into one’s writing is all too simple, but to accomplish the task seamlessly and, in doing so, yield a product actually worthy of reading, requires a certain life of relative absurdity. At this, Mr. Thompson not only excelled but defined the genre, earning the title Dr. Gonzo and injecting the world of journalism with its own unique brand of post-modernity.

With such famously mind-bending writing, though, came an equally mind-bending lifestyle. Drugs of seemingly every sort, shotguns blasted aimlessly into the night, crudeness of an unparalleled degree and a “fortified compound” that has become almost as legendary as the writer himself are just some of the elements that composed Mr. Thompson’s life. He was surely the product of a quickly broken mold, and through his self-invented vehicle of gonzo journalism, the world was able to voyeuristically peak in with eyes of a peculiar dreamy astonishment.

Sunday evening that all ended, however, as news broke that Mr. Thompson has taken his own life with a shotgun. It was a dramatic and stunning end to a dramatic and stunning life, and now the world may begin to fawningly reflect upon one of its greatest counterculture icons.

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream” was surely Mr. Thompson’s best-known work, and in a sense, it epitomized the tone of his other efforts. Thoroughly-laced with drugs of seemingly every sort, pages made to appear as though they are dripping with blood and satirical of its straight-edged subjects in countless ways, the book is at once a fantasy, political commentary and adventure. In 1998 the effort was made into a Johnny Depp film, and for all of the movie’s popularity, it quickly became evident that the forced-cinematography of the camera could never aptly describe the many overlapping images so deliciously offered in Mr. Thompson’s book.

But Las Vegas drug trips surely were not the extent of Dr. Gonzo’s work. A similarly titled piece about the 1972 presidential campaign proved both astute and amusing, showing that even the darkest of political fears could be elevated to a certain level of biting hilarity.

Yet some of Mr. Thompson’s most enjoyable pieces could not be found in bound hardcover but rather in panoply of magazines and newspapers. Rolling Stone, The San Francisco Chronicle, and ESPN’s Page 2 were just some of the reclusive author’s chosen hubs of publication, with the latter employing him through his death this weekend, having run his would-be last column Feb. 16 of this year. That final entry would prove haunting, as its lengthy discussion of a new variation on golf to be co-founded by Mr. Thompson and Bill Murray included numerous references to shotguns and commenced with the words “the death” (though the phrase was applied in a context of professional hockey).

But guns were a large part of Dr. Gonzo’s life, as he would famously stand at the door of his fortified compound outside of Aspen, Colo., and shoot aimlessly at noises in the night. Once, when attempting to scare a bear away, he accidentally wounded his assistant.

But with each such shotgun blast, hit of drugs and bizarrely self-centric column, Mr. Thompson’s boldly unique and intriguing image was merely heightened. With every astounding personal detail he happily shared with his readers, Dr. Gonzo seemed to become further removed from reality, and therein was the beautifully paradoxical nature of the escapism he offered America for so many years.

Mr. Thompson was as unique as he was brilliant, as reclusive as he was public and as easily appreciated as thoroughly studied. And thanks to his mastery of gonzo journalism, we will be able to long appreciate his beautifully bizarre life through the many writings he has left behind.