abadzone:

Brett Ewins 1955 - 2015

Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon gave me my start in comics as a creator. I’d worked for Marvel UK and Fleetway before I worked for Deadline, but it was Brett and Steve who looked at my portfolio and saw some potential there and gave me a chance as a cartoonist. Brett found a loose, lanky stick man I’d hidden at the back of all the other drawings and asked if the character had a name. He didn’t, but the two of them read the two-page strip and laughed.

I can still hear Brett saying, “Yeah, we’ll have this. Can you give us two or three pages of this every month?” They paid fifty quid a page.

Later, the name Hugo Tate attached itself to the character, and Brett and Steve gave me more pages as the strip became more popular. I didn’t have much confidence as a cartoonist when I was young and I had to become good, fast, and I learned in public. They allowed me do that, gave me a place to do it, cajoled me, encouraged me. Steve was my storytelling mentor, but Brett loved it when I got angry and pushed me to put the passion into the comics, which I did.

On an emotional level, on the level of understanding pop culture – what it is, what it can be and what it’s worth – these two blokes were the best editors you can imagine. It was all done by instinct and with an anti-authoritarian sense of purpose and fun. I don’t think they just looked at the drawings, they looked at the person who made them and thought about who the people reading this stuff would be. That’s why Deadline had such cultural impact and why it’s still sending ripples out today.

Aside from being a groundbreaking artist in 2000AD, Brett Ewins put his heart and soul into comics, into changing them and not letting them be ignored or dismissed by the self-elected gatekeepers of culture, at the same time keeping them grounded, real. He was a force of nature, and I was lucky to encounter him, work with him, drink with him and be influenced by him. It’s not too profound to say that he changed my life. He had some difficulties later because of his illness, but that innate, impish joie de vivre stayed with him and will always be there in the pages he drew. I’ll remember the good times. Brett, I hope now you have found some peace. 

Cheers, mate.

The halfway point.
#sky in stereo