What do you think?
Rate this book
Jamie Hewlett
Librarian's Note: This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9783836560931.
Gorilla thriller Inside the mind of Jamie Hewlett From the legendary Tank Girl to live-action animations with art-pop noisemakers Gorillaz, dabblings with Chinese contemporary opera to an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, artist Jamie Hewlett is one of the most energetic figures of contemporary pop culture.
With influences ranging from hip hop to zombie slasher movies, Hewlett emerged in the mid 1990s as cocreator of the zeitgeist-defining Tank Girl comic. With then-roommate, Blur frontman Damon Albarn, he went on to create the unique cartoon band Gorillaz, a virtual pop group of animated characters, which recorded four studio albums and mounted breathtaking live spectacles. Since then, Hewlett has continued to collaborate with Albarn on projects including an elaborate staging of the Chinese novel Monkey: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng en, complete with circus acrobats, Shaolin monks, and Chinese singers.
In 2006, he was named Designer of the Year by the Design Museum in London, and in 2009, Hewlett and Albarn won a Bafta for their Monkey animated sequence for the Beijing Olympic Games. More recently, an exhibition of prints at the Saatchi Gallery in London demonstrated an exciting new direction in Hewlett s practice. This new TASCHEN edition, Hewlett s first major monograph, illustrates this thrilling creative journey with over 400 artworks from the Tank Girl era through Gorillaz and up to the present day.
Through stories, characters, strips, and sketches, we trace Hewlett s exceptional capacity for invention and celebrate a polymath artist who refuses to rest on his laurels, or to be pigeonholed into a particular practice.
Text in English, French, and German
Gorilla thriller Inside the mind of Jamie Hewlett From the legendary Tank Girl to live-action animations with art-pop noisemakers Gorillaz, dabblings with Chinese contemporary opera to an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, artist Jamie Hewlett is one of the most energetic figures of contemporary pop culture.
With influences ranging from hip hop to zombie slasher movies, Hewlett emerged in the mid 1990s as cocreator of the zeitgeist-defining Tank Girl comic. With then-roommate, Blur frontman Damon Albarn, he went on to create the unique cartoon band Gorillaz, a virtual pop group of animated characters, which recorded four studio albums and mounted breathtaking live spectacles. Since then, Hewlett has continued to collaborate with Albarn on projects including an elaborate staging of the Chinese novel Monkey: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng en, complete with circus acrobats, Shaolin monks, and Chinese singers.
In 2006, he was named Designer of the Year by the Design Museum in London, and in 2009, Hewlett and Albarn won a Bafta for their Monkey animated sequence for the Beijing Olympic Games. More recently, an exhibition of prints at the Saatchi Gallery in London demonstrated an exciting new direction in Hewlett s practice. This new TASCHEN edition, Hewlett s first major monograph, illustrates this thrilling creative journey with over 400 artworks from the Tank Girl era through Gorillaz and up to the present day.
Through stories, characters, strips, and sketches, we trace Hewlett s exceptional capacity for invention and celebrate a polymath artist who refuses to rest on his laurels, or to be pigeonholed into a particular practice.
Text in English, French, and German
424 pages, Hardcover
Published November 7, 2017
17 people are currently reading
406 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
April 12, 2022
thank you mr. Hewlett for inspiring me to pursue the rarely lucrative career of an animator i will not let you down🙏
May 4, 2025
Interesting interviews, really affordable for the amount of art and information in it. Not sure I'm always with Hewlett's artistic choices, I am also not a very edgy person, but I've certainly gained some more respect for his work and will definitely be looking through it again for inspiration! The art is beautiful, I loved how it was not just Gorillaz, but other aspects of his career too.
January 8, 2025
This book was really inspiring for me and motivated me partially to get back into drawing. His span of artwork through the years is interesting to see apart from his Gorillaz collection.
January 9, 2024
fun illustrations and lots of stories/context for things that i grew up on featuring jamie's work, but i am not an edgy person and i didn't enjoy some small but blaringly loud portions of the content in his book. fun for looking through illustrations for inspiration or just to view a crazy original take on character design and stylization.
December 28, 2017
I picked this up because I’m a fan of Hewlett’s comic book work (not just Tank Girl, but also Hewligan’s Haircut and his other work with writer Peter Milligan) and his innovative work with the “virtual band” the Gorillaz.
The book is big and impressive, charting a 25-year career in comics, commercial art, design, illustration and animation. It makes a statement, establishing Hewlett’s place in the cultural landscape.
As a comic book fan, I think of Hewlett as a comic book artist first and foremost. While that’s how he got his start, he really hasn’t worked in comics for years. In the book, he mentions in passing how he’d rather starve than do superhero comics. But, his character design work on the Gorillaz is so reminiscent of his comic book work that they blend together seemlessly.
The Gorillaz material dominates the book, as it has dominated his career to date. But, it’s the other projects that the book brings to light that I find fascinating. I came for Tank Girl and the Gorillaz, but I stayed for the lesser-known works, like his Bangladesh plein air watercolors or his intricate nature drawings.
My only complaint with the Bangladesh section is that it was too short. The text for the section builds up this trip to Bangladesh on behalf of Oxfam as a huge turning point in his personal and professional development, but then we only get to see six small pieces.
I guess it’s a good book if the main complaint is that it’s too short. But, there’s definitely a feel that the book is just skimming the surface. Each section could have been fleshed out to become its own book. Though, presumably we’re getting the best of what was available. Hewlett mentions in the beginning that a lot of his early comic book art, especially, has been lost over the years (either not returned by the publisher, or given away or sold or just disappeared). In some ways, it’s a scrapbook, as well as a career survey.
One thing I was hoping to see that sadly wasn’t included was his bottle designs for Absolut vodka. Those bottle are gorgeous. But, I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of a comic I didn’t even know about: a strip called Get the Freebies! for The Face magazine. Again, as viewed from the career retrospective context of the book, the point is more to show examples of his style for artistic appreciation than it is to present a collection of strips for reading enjoyment, but his Get the Freebies! strips were well represented and a joy to discover, as well as his rarely-seen strip The 16s, where Hewlett re-teamed with his Tank Girl co-creator, Alan Martin, for a Calvin & Hobbes-style comic.
But, what I loved about the book, aside from the chance to see other sides to the artist (and the chance to see his beautiful wife naked in the Honey section) is that is that it really puts into words what I love so much about his style. I couldn’t articulate it before, but there is a playfulness and joy to his work that is undeniably charming. Even (or especially) in works like Tank Girl, where he’s drawing a badass, tough punk girl in a post-apocalyptic landscape, it’s oddly and unabashedly joyful.
Hewlett talks about being inspired mainly by MAD magazine and you can see the irreverent, satirical humor in the personalities and attitudes of his characters. His character designs are cartoon-ish, but detailed. He’s clearly an artist who spends hours observing, people-watching, noticing small details in facial expression, body language, fashion and incorporating those details into even his quick sketches. This has the unique effect of making his drawings appear to be both meticulous and off-the-cuff at the same time. He’s said in another interview (not included here) that he doesn’t like to re-draw things because the drawings lose their spontaneity. But, looking at the lyrical pine tree drawings, especially, you can see that his spontaneous drawing style is built upon a foundation of careful observation.
Hewlett also just clearly loves the things that he draws. Going back to his comic book work, his cartoony style reminds me a bit of ’90s alternative-comics trailblazer Peter Bagge (who shares some of Hewlett’s influences, most notably MAD magazine and Warner Bros. cartoons). But, where Bagge has a more contemptuous satirical tone and a darker streak (in the underground American tradition of Robert Crumb), Hewlett (in accordance with British custom) is just having fun taking the piss out of people he loves.
The book is big and impressive, charting a 25-year career in comics, commercial art, design, illustration and animation. It makes a statement, establishing Hewlett’s place in the cultural landscape.
As a comic book fan, I think of Hewlett as a comic book artist first and foremost. While that’s how he got his start, he really hasn’t worked in comics for years. In the book, he mentions in passing how he’d rather starve than do superhero comics. But, his character design work on the Gorillaz is so reminiscent of his comic book work that they blend together seemlessly.
The Gorillaz material dominates the book, as it has dominated his career to date. But, it’s the other projects that the book brings to light that I find fascinating. I came for Tank Girl and the Gorillaz, but I stayed for the lesser-known works, like his Bangladesh plein air watercolors or his intricate nature drawings.
My only complaint with the Bangladesh section is that it was too short. The text for the section builds up this trip to Bangladesh on behalf of Oxfam as a huge turning point in his personal and professional development, but then we only get to see six small pieces.
I guess it’s a good book if the main complaint is that it’s too short. But, there’s definitely a feel that the book is just skimming the surface. Each section could have been fleshed out to become its own book. Though, presumably we’re getting the best of what was available. Hewlett mentions in the beginning that a lot of his early comic book art, especially, has been lost over the years (either not returned by the publisher, or given away or sold or just disappeared). In some ways, it’s a scrapbook, as well as a career survey.
One thing I was hoping to see that sadly wasn’t included was his bottle designs for Absolut vodka. Those bottle are gorgeous. But, I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of a comic I didn’t even know about: a strip called Get the Freebies! for The Face magazine. Again, as viewed from the career retrospective context of the book, the point is more to show examples of his style for artistic appreciation than it is to present a collection of strips for reading enjoyment, but his Get the Freebies! strips were well represented and a joy to discover, as well as his rarely-seen strip The 16s, where Hewlett re-teamed with his Tank Girl co-creator, Alan Martin, for a Calvin & Hobbes-style comic.
But, what I loved about the book, aside from the chance to see other sides to the artist (and the chance to see his beautiful wife naked in the Honey section) is that is that it really puts into words what I love so much about his style. I couldn’t articulate it before, but there is a playfulness and joy to his work that is undeniably charming. Even (or especially) in works like Tank Girl, where he’s drawing a badass, tough punk girl in a post-apocalyptic landscape, it’s oddly and unabashedly joyful.
Hewlett talks about being inspired mainly by MAD magazine and you can see the irreverent, satirical humor in the personalities and attitudes of his characters. His character designs are cartoon-ish, but detailed. He’s clearly an artist who spends hours observing, people-watching, noticing small details in facial expression, body language, fashion and incorporating those details into even his quick sketches. This has the unique effect of making his drawings appear to be both meticulous and off-the-cuff at the same time. He’s said in another interview (not included here) that he doesn’t like to re-draw things because the drawings lose their spontaneity. But, looking at the lyrical pine tree drawings, especially, you can see that his spontaneous drawing style is built upon a foundation of careful observation.
Hewlett also just clearly loves the things that he draws. Going back to his comic book work, his cartoony style reminds me a bit of ’90s alternative-comics trailblazer Peter Bagge (who shares some of Hewlett’s influences, most notably MAD magazine and Warner Bros. cartoons). But, where Bagge has a more contemptuous satirical tone and a darker streak (in the underground American tradition of Robert Crumb), Hewlett (in accordance with British custom) is just having fun taking the piss out of people he loves.
November 17, 2023
ma cosa gli vuoi dire? niente. la perfezione e il disegnatore che volevo diventare da giovane.
August 1, 2020
It's no secret that Benedikt Taschen started his publishing empire as a comics dealer, so it's natural that he'd put out a big, lavish edition of works by someone like Jamie Hewlett. Hewlett came to everyone's attention as the artist for Tank Girl, a pre-Riot Grrl Mad Max series, shortly followed by a series of highly entertaining cartoons of the band Gorillaz.
This beautifully printed compilation features comic excerpts, posters, rare drawings and other works by Hewlett, topped off with a section in the rear devoted to sketches, specially printed on transparent vellum paper. This is a very impressive showcase for Mr. Hewlett's work.
In the future I'd like to see Taschen invest this much effort into anthologizing other comic artists like Jaime Hernandez, Ashley Wood or the late Darwyn Cooke. The mouth waters at such possibilities.
This beautifully printed compilation features comic excerpts, posters, rare drawings and other works by Hewlett, topped off with a section in the rear devoted to sketches, specially printed on transparent vellum paper. This is a very impressive showcase for Mr. Hewlett's work.
In the future I'd like to see Taschen invest this much effort into anthologizing other comic artists like Jaime Hernandez, Ashley Wood or the late Darwyn Cooke. The mouth waters at such possibilities.
April 9, 2020
Excelente collection of Hewlett's ilustrations from the past 25 years. I would have liked to see more Gorillaz Art though. The whole book is a great experience. Proove of Hewlett's gigantic talent and life view.
July 19, 2024
This beautifully crafted art book has the same short-coming most beautifully crafted art books have for me—not enough text for context. Here this is mitigated by the portions of the book dealing with comics but still I would like to know more. There are intros for each body of work but the work itself goes mostly unremarked upon. The art is mostly creative and striking with a singular style and certainly deserves this presentation. Jamie Hewlett is mostly known for visualizing the cartoon fronted band GORILLAZ and his in your face offbeat TANK GIRL comic. I appreciated the career overview (which even includes creating an opera) but after looking at image after isolated image I kept wanting to go back to reading the TANK GIRL comics I was so hungry for words. Where I was most let down by the lack of narrative was the section on Bangladesh. I was very disappointed when this charity connected art project was only represented by about 6 pieces and each one begged to be fleshed out with at least a few words. To the book’s credit, I wanted more of every section but the Bangladesh portion in particular. For now, just going to figure out how to craftily acquire some TANK GIRL.
May 14, 2024
Un must have per chiunque sia un ammiratore del lavoro di Hewlett.
500 pagine di puro godimento (delle quali 140 dedicate ai Gorillaz e altre 100 a Miscellaneous)
Il libro presenta una breve introduzione che è una chiacchierata tra Hewlett, Mondino (fotografo e regista di video musicali di fama internazionale) e l’attrice Emma de Caunes (moglie di Hewlett).
Il libro è poi suddiviso in sezione, ognuna ha un’introduzione di una pagina che racconta un po’ contesto e retroscena e poi pagine e pagine dei lavori di Hewlett.
In ordine le sezioni sono
Tank Girl
Phoo Action
Gorillaz
Bangladesh
Monkey Journey to the West
Miscellaneous
Tarot
Honey
Pine trees
Il libro finisce con una sezione di sketches e la biografia di Hewlett.
Come ho detto, è un must have. Bellissimo. Lo riguarderò fino a consumarlo.
500 pagine di puro godimento (delle quali 140 dedicate ai Gorillaz e altre 100 a Miscellaneous)
Il libro presenta una breve introduzione che è una chiacchierata tra Hewlett, Mondino (fotografo e regista di video musicali di fama internazionale) e l’attrice Emma de Caunes (moglie di Hewlett).
Il libro è poi suddiviso in sezione, ognuna ha un’introduzione di una pagina che racconta un po’ contesto e retroscena e poi pagine e pagine dei lavori di Hewlett.
In ordine le sezioni sono
Tank Girl
Phoo Action
Gorillaz
Bangladesh
Monkey Journey to the West
Miscellaneous
Tarot
Honey
Pine trees
Il libro finisce con una sezione di sketches e la biografia di Hewlett.
Come ho detto, è un must have. Bellissimo. Lo riguarderò fino a consumarlo.
January 31, 2024
Bon on s’entend je lis pas vraiment tout.. c’est pour regardez les images 🤓 mais j’ai tout consulter avec amour ! Heureux d’avoir ce livre !
March 10, 2024
1.5 stars. Borrowed from my neighbour
April 27, 2024
More artwork from the artist off the Gorillaz music videos. I loved the look of art in the book.
December 28, 2024
(PT) A monografia dos desenhos de Jamie Howlett, o criador de Tank Girl e dos Gorilaz, feito ao longo de 30 anos.
February 25, 2025
A museum in a book. Gorgeous illustrations in a gorgeous volume. Hewlett is my aesthetic.
August 7, 2025
AWESOMEEEEE, never fails to inspire me when I have an art block
January 2, 2023
Maginfique livre d'art qui retrace tout l'art de Jamie Hewlett. La collection " 40th anniversary " de chez Taschen est par ailleurs très abordable, et la qualité de fabrication du livre n'est pas en reste !
September 8, 2021
Before he became a rock star with 10s of millions of records sold Jamie Hewlett was the creator and artist behind a cult favorite late 80s/90s comic turned not well received movie Tank Girl.
His art in Gorillaz and its sound and style would have incredible cross medium influence and this is a pretty important art book because Hewlett's work is scattered around, from Deadline to many other random magazines and zines that nobody would probably have all of.
It's important because while Tank Girl is certainly a thing that had it moment, Gorillaz became so popular and successful Hewlett remains somewhat of a master sequential artist who has obvious and tremendous influence to today's cartoonists (I mean he's a dope indie artist turned rock star via his art, how can they help themselves) for having a relatively short career in comics with no obvious or at least current masterpiece to point to.
This is 500 pages from Taschen (known for quality books) for 20 bucks. As far as art books go that's not a bad deal
His art in Gorillaz and its sound and style would have incredible cross medium influence and this is a pretty important art book because Hewlett's work is scattered around, from Deadline to many other random magazines and zines that nobody would probably have all of.
It's important because while Tank Girl is certainly a thing that had it moment, Gorillaz became so popular and successful Hewlett remains somewhat of a master sequential artist who has obvious and tremendous influence to today's cartoonists (I mean he's a dope indie artist turned rock star via his art, how can they help themselves) for having a relatively short career in comics with no obvious or at least current masterpiece to point to.
This is 500 pages from Taschen (known for quality books) for 20 bucks. As far as art books go that's not a bad deal
September 16, 2021
This was glorious. I've been following Hewlett since the Tank Girl days of Dark Horse Comics but I was even enlightened by some of the material in these pages. The evolution of Hewlett's work from punk tank piloter to the delicate illustration of pine trees was an intriguing Journey. My only complaint is that the lush and perverse detail that Hewlett's work offers deserves a much more oversized volume. Many of the double-page spreads were marred by the very binding of the book. These pieces spread over one oversized page would have been preferable. Besides the books size I have nothing but praise for this retrospective.
June 21, 2019
Surtido rico, es un gran compilado de la carrera de Jamie Hewlett. Algunas ilustraciones de Tank Girl (The Cream Of Tank Girl, Integral de Tank Girl, La Odisea), Gorillaz (Rise Of The Ogre / Era de Humanz), Monkey Journey To The West, entre otros proyectos...Algunas ilustraciones de Gorillaz se ven pequeñas en comparación al tamaño del libro, pero es divertido de principio a fin. Cada sección contiene un prefacio acerca de cada proyecto. Lo recomiendo si no han visto otros libros de este gran ilustrador.
Read
April 24, 2021This is an artbook featuring the work of, one might guess it, Jamie Hewlett, who made a name for himself as the artist/creator of Tank Girl and soared to international fame as one of the heads behind the Gorillaz whose look he created.
I always liked his style, but did not really know much about his work. Thanks to this book that has changed somewhat, as it features not only his comic and Gorillaz-related work, but also less cartoony, more illustrative work* that shows how good Hewlett actually is.
*also paintings, sketches, photographies...
I always liked his style, but did not really know much about his work. Thanks to this book that has changed somewhat, as it features not only his comic and Gorillaz-related work, but also less cartoony, more illustrative work* that shows how good Hewlett actually is.
*also paintings, sketches, photographies...
Read
April 4, 2022Gorgeous art book. I let it sit out for a while before even removing the plastic wrap, just because I liked looking at it so much. The book is beautifully presented, divided into artwork from major projects of Hewlett's career, with an interview at the beginning and short prose descriptions about a page long before each chapter. I only knew about Tank Girl and Gorillaz, so it was a pleasure to discover some of his other works.
July 18, 2022
El estilo de Hewlett ha influenciado más cosas de las que nos damos cuenta, tanto años después, pero siempre es divertido, muy extravagante y rebelde. Un must para cualquier persona que quiera conocer sobre arte moderno-contemporáneo y su conexión con la cultura pop.
February 10, 2018
Nice display of Jamie’s work, with a few new illustrations.
March 13, 2018
Amazing art.
August 26, 2018
Inspirador
October 28, 2020
Yeh brill
December 30, 2020
What a wonderful artbook! I absolutely adore it.
July 7, 2021
Maybe lacking in the Gorillaz department but totally makes up for it by showcasing so many different bodies of his work. Big inspiration on almost every page
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews