Jamie Christopher Hewlett (born 3 April 1968) is a British comic book artist and illustrator. He is the co-creator of the comic book Tank Girl with Alan Martin, and the virtual band Gorillaz alongside Blur frontman Damon Albarn.
Brought up in Horsham, West Sussex, Jamie Hewlett was a pupil at Tanbridge House School, a comprehensive for pupils aged 11–16 years. In 1983 he worked in the Wardour Street studios of Oscar Award-winning animator Bob Godfrey. Hewlett created the original artwork for a pilot animated cartoon series for Thames Television directed by Bob Godfrey with voiceovers by Peter Hawkins, the voice of Bill & Ben. He attended Horsham Arts School and Worthing Art College.
While studying at Northbrook College Worthing, Hewlett, Alan Martin and fellow student Philip Bond 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.
A magazine called Deadline featured a mixture of comic strips produced by English creators like Hewlett 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 Senseless Things and Cud providing covers for record releases; he also contributed artwork sporadically to Commodore User magazine.
He designed decor for a nightclub called The Factory in Chatsworth Road, Worthing. The decor featured red and green stripes, a wall of blown-up panels from Tank Girl set against 1970s wallpaper, a Ford Escort hung from the ceiling, and toilets pasted with pages from old comic book annuals. The Factory has since been refurbished and renamed several times.
By 1992, Hewlett had become a major creator in the comics industry, and one of the few to break into mainstream media. He had worked with writer Peter Milligan on Hewligan's Haircut in 2000 AD issues 700 to 707. The series was later compiled into a trade paperback. He was involved in providing covers and art for Shade, the Changing Man, also written by Milligan, for DC Comics.
Tank Girl was optioned to be made into a film by MGM after being considered by, among others, Steven Spielberg. The film was released in 1995 and featured Lori Petty as Tank Girl. It was a commercial and critical failure and was criticized by fans who said it failed to capture the essence of the original strip. Hewlett had very little involvement with the film.
Hewlett drew a Tank Girl mini-series for the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics written by Peter Milligan.
He opened a secondhand clothing store, 49. The shop, at 49 Rowlands Road, Worthing, was managed by girlfriend Jane Oliver, originally a member of Elastica, but this was a short-lived venture and closed within a year.
Hewlett was still involved with English bands of the mid-1990s, including illustrating a comic strip version of Pulp's song "Common People".
Deadline was eventually cancelled in 1996 due to falling sales in a changed market and Hewlett concentrated on working in advertising and designs for television, most notably the children's series SMTV Live, featuring Ant & Dec. In 1996, he created the strip Get the Freebies, which was published monthly in English fashion magazine The Face. The stories, all set in London, followed the exploits of Terry Phoo, a gay, Buddhist kung-fu law enforcement officer and his sidekick Whitey Action, an enigmatic young anarchist with a bad attitude, as they tackle their primary adversaries The Freebies Gang. The dynamic between the two heroes was much like that of Tank Girl and her mutant kangaroo boyfriend Booga, with the episodes from the female protagonist's point of view. The strip's primary function was for Hewlett to vent his spleen against the media idols and trends of the day, the story often taking second place to the jokes. The strip ran for 12 issues.
On 2 March 1996, his first son, Denholm Sweeney Hewlett was born.
In 1998, he moved into a flat with Blur's Damon Albarn after Hewlett split with Oliver, and it was while sharing the flat that the pair came up with the idea of Gorillaz, a virtual band. Albarn would work on the music, while Hewlett would come up with character designs, and both came up with ideas for the members of the band. The first Gorillaz EP was released in 2000 followed by the first album, Gorillaz in 2001. In 2005, their second full studio album, Demon Days was released.
On 2 April 2000, his second son, Rocky Serpico Hewlett was born.
In January 2006, Hewlett's artwork for Gorillaz was shortlisted for the Design Museum's Designer of the Year award. In May 2006, he was named the Designer of the Year 2006. On 25 May 2006, Hewlett and Albarn won the joint award for Songwriters of the Year at the Ivor Novello Awards.
In 2007, Hewlett and Albarn premiered their first major work since Gorillaz, entitled Monkey: Journey to the West, a re-working of the ancient Chinese legend Journey to the West. Albarn wrote the score whilst Hewlett designed the set, animations and costumes. Written and adapted by Chen Shi-zheng, the show featured 45 Chinese circus acrobats, Shaolin monks and Chinese vocalists. It premiered at the Palace Theatre, Manchester as part of the Manchester International Festival, on 28 June 2007.
His Get the Freebies strip was adapted by BBC Three for a pilot entitled Phoo Action, broadcast in February 2008.
Hewlett and Albarn created the animation sequence the BBC used to introduce coverage of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The sequence titled Journey to the East uses the Monkey character from Monkey: Journey to the West.