Air Pirate Press Authors

Brett Ewins

Brett Ewins studied conceptual art at London's Goldsmith's college where he met his future collaborator Peter Milligan. Becoming disillusioned with formal art world, Ewins left college and began work on a comic project, Sometime Stories, with long-time friend Brendan McCarthy. The project was cancelled before the completed second issue was printed and Ewins and McCarthy turned their attention to the fledgling comic 2000AD. They quickly began contributing covers and Future Shock stories. Within a year Ewins was drawing fill-in epsisodes of the comics star character Judge Dredd. followed by a regular series assignment, providing the art for Rogue Trooper, alternating with Cam Kennedy. Two series of Psi Judge Anderson followed, then Ewins embarked on Bad Company, scripted by Pete Milligan.

Brett Ewins fame spread to the other side of the Atlantic and after a short run working on Brendan McCarthy's Eclipse published title Strange Days Ewins drew three issues of Johnny Nemo, again scripted by Milligan. Ewins also, pencilled fill-in issue of Hellblazer for DC Comics, Grimjack for First and Mr X for Vortex. Then Milligan and Ewins created Skreemer for DC Comics.

Back in the UK, Ewins had started a monthly magazine with fellow artist Steve Dillon. Deadline magazine became the launchpad for Tank Girl and fuelled the careers of Jamie Hewlett and Phillip Bond. But the sheer volume of work was having a profound effect on Ewins health and by 1995, he had all but retired from drawing comics.

While Ewins still finds time for the ocassional art project, he now spends more time writing, and is currently working on a science fantasy novel.

Alan McKenzie

After achieving relative obscurity in the field of psychology, Alan McKenzie sought to extend his low-key approach to the field of publishing. His earliest progress in this direction was made by becoming an Editorial Assistant for Top Sellers, who published the British Edition of MAD magazine and the fondly-remembered comic mag House of Hammer/Horror. Then came Marvel Comics, where he edited a science fiction movie magazine called Starburst and a comic devoted to the adventures of tv favourite, Doctor Who.

Two years of frenzied freelance writing resulted in the books The Harrison Ford Story (Zomba Books, London 1984), Hollywood Tricks of the Trade (Gallery Books, 1985), How to Draw and Sell Comic Strips (North Light/Titan, 1987, 1998 & 2004) and enough magazine articles to paper several rooms. In the area of comic strips he wrote ninja stories for IPC’s Battle Action Force, a monthly comic adventure for Doctor Who and even a two-page adaptation of the entire opera Carmen. After a marathon eight-year stint as initially a freelance deputy editor then on-staff as editor of the UK’s best-selling 2000AD, to which he contributed the occasional script, he strayed into computer magazine publishing and now divides his time between online communications technology and updating his earlier best-sellers.

Alan McKenzie lives in a fashionable demilitarised zone in East London with his wife Sue and his daughter Rebecca.