While studying at Northbrook College, England Hewlett, and fellow student Alan Martin created a fanzine called Atomtan in 1988. While they were there they had a guest lecture from Brett Ewins who was trying to put together a new comic magazine 'Deadline' with fellow artist Steve Dillon. They saw a design for a character 'Tankgirl' in Atomtan and asked Alan and Jamie if they would like to expand the idea into a comic strip Jamie drawing the strip and Alan writing it. Tank Girl was on the front cover of the first issue of Deadline and was the most popular strip in the magazine. Tankgirl became a big name in the media in the UK as a style icon, and eventually Hollywood showed interest and a film was put into production. 'Tank Girl' the film was released in 1995 but it was a let-down for Tank Girl fans, a commercial flop and a critical failure. After the film's release Jamie drew Tank Girl in one last strip 'The Odyssesy' (without Alan Martin writing) and then he abandoned the character forever. Hewlett also worked on strips for the British Sci-Fi comic 2000 AD, most notably for the 8-part series Hewligan's Haircut, scripted by Peter Milligan in 1990-1991. After Tank Girl Jamie seemed to lose interest in comics for the most part (he's talked about how the bottom went out of the market in interviews, and also that he felt the comic scene wasn't going anywhere). He branched out into other creative projects, including designing decor for a nightclub - The Factory in Worthing and helping set up a vintage clothes shop in Worthing. He later worked on a number of advertising campaigns, including for SM:TV, a TV program in the UK. He has also drawn some pictures that have been issued by the 'Pictures On Walls' company as limited edition prints, and has designed record sleeves for some bands, for example The Senseless Things. He lived with Damon Albarn for 8 months in 1997 and it was then that they came to the idea of starting the Gorillaz project. Jamie took on a staff to help with all the work, Zombie Flesh Eaters, and the Zombie Flesh Eaters have also done other projects in Gorillaz downtime, such as the interactive menus for a John Lennon DVD.
taken from gorillaz-unofficial.com