British comics Twitter this afternoon was rocked by the news that legendary 2000AD, Deadline, Johnny Nemo and Skreemer artist Brett Ewins had died. He had been one of those artists that never quite gotten the recognition they deserved but who was quietly influential to whole generations of artists, his influence noticable in people like Jamie Hewlett or Kieron Gillen. He was also one of the people responsible for what you might call the housestyle of 2000AD, a somewhat exagerrated, loose and kinetic style of cartooning that was like nothing seen in either American or British comics before. I personally first encountered his work on the “Universal Soldier” story from prog 750, during that glorious year or two I bought 2000AD weekly back in 1990-1992.
Brett Ewins, Jamie Hewlett, Steve Dillon (L-R) at the Deadline offices.
As Joe Gordon puts it in the Forbidden Planet blog, Ewins was an essential figure in the UK comics scene of the eighties and nineties:
An utterly seminal figure for readers, especially of my generation growing up with 2000 AD and then, perfectly timed for us as we got that bit older, Deadline and other works, experimenting, pushing, improving, changing, pushing the nature of comics artwork and design (and in the case of Deadline, quite simply making comics cool – how well I remember my copies being borrowed by friends at college who hadn’t read a comic since they were kids, a perfect Cool Britannia mix of innovative comics, fresh, hip, hungry talent – being so nurtured by a generous Brett as many of them will tell you – and music and style, it was intoxicating, it was exciting).