English comics artist Jamie Hewlett made a name for himself as the co-creator of the early 90’s irreverent, over-the-top, punk-camp comic series Tank Girl, (which was made into an unbearably campy movie in 1995).
In 1998, Hewlett teamed up with former flat-mate Damon Albarn of the british band Blur to create Gorillaz, a virtual “zombie hip-hop” band in which the band members exist only as cartoon characters drawn by Hewlett. Gorillaz has gone on to be by far the most successful virtual band ever, selling millions of records.
In the years since Tank Girl, Hewlett’s loose, slapdash drawing style has matured a bit, but still retains much of the energy and looseness of his earlier approach. The result is a pleasingly energetic but more refined drawing and coloring style that makes the Gorillaz art a lot of fun.
There’s no official Jamie Hewlett site that I know of, so here’s an assortment of links:
Unofficial Tank Girl site.
Gorillaz official fan site, that has a “Press Photos” gallery of cartoon images of the band.
Post of Hewlett’s “Common People” strip.
Overview of the Gorillaz phenomenon from the Guardian and Wikipedia.
Wikipedia entry on Jamie Hewlett.
The Tank Girl 1 and Tank Girl 2 graphic novels are still available.
The link I’ll point you to below is the official Gorillaz site, which takes a little effort to get around, but can be fun in itself as an entertaining Flash interface and series of games. (Hint: there’s a “Map Monkey” and “Quick Links” in the navigation at bottom.)
