Jamie Hewlett

Jamie Christopher Hewlett (born 3 April 1968) is an English comic book artist, designer, and director. He is best known for being the co-creator of the comic Tank Girl and co-creator of the virtual band Gorillaz.

Biography

Brought up in Horsham, West Sussex, Jamie Hewlett was a pupil at Tanbridge House School, a local co-educational comprehensive for pupils aged 11–16 years. He contributed to the art work of a road safety campaign that ended up runner-up in a national television competition.

While studying at Northbrook College Worthing, Hewlett, Alan Martin and fellow student Philip Bond had created a fanzine called Atomtan. This brought him to the attention of Brett Ewins. After leaving college Hewlett and Martin were invited by Ewins to create material for a new magazine he was setting up with Steve Dillon in 1988.

The magazine was called Deadline and featured a mixture of comic strips produced by British creators, and articles on music and culture. Martin and Hewlett created Tank Girl, an anarchic strip about a teenage punk girl who drove a tank and had a mutant kangaroo for a boyfriend. The strip proved instantly popular and quickly became the most talked about part of Deadline. Hewlett's eccentric style proved popular and he started to work with bands such as Senseless Things and Cud providing covers for record releases; he also contributed artwork sporadically to Commodore User magazine.