JAMIE HEWLETT

British comic books artist and designer Jamie Hewlett attended Worthing Art College, where he set up his own fanzine, Atomtan, with fellow students Alan Martin and Philip Bond. When Hewlett left college, Bret Ewins offered him and his friend Alan Martin a chance to do comics in a new magazine called Deadline.
In 1988, the boys collaborated on a strip called 'Tank Girl'. The anarchic strip about a teenage punk girl soon became Deadline's most popular comic. (A 'Tank Girl' feature film was released by MGM in 1995.) He created the strip 'Get the Freebies' for the British monthly The Face. At this time, he lived in a flat with Damon Albarn, with whom he set up the pop group Gorillaz in 1998. Hewlett did the character designs, based upon his 'Get the Freebies' characters, for this virtual band, while Albarn focused on the music.

Jamie Hewlett on his Olympics animation;

‘It looks wonderful and I’m really thrilled by it,’ says Hewlett. ‘It’s gone through so many changes because there are so many departments at the BBC, and the Olympics is their biggest gig of the year. Damon [Albarn] and I are used to having the luxury of doing exactly what we want, and we understand that this whole idea of using animated ancient Chinese characters is quite a wild-card for them. But somebody at the BBC had seen the Monkey opera and they put our name into the mix. And I think we’ve managed to keep the BBC happy, to tick every box, without ruining the original idea. I mean, the characters aren’t wearing running vests!’