Alan C. Martin

Once upon a time, I saw the movie Tank Girl, and it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. I loved it. Eventually, I heard that it was based off of a comic, supposedly, but that it had diverged so far from the source material as to make the comic writers furious. Curious, over the years I collected the three TPBs of Tank Girl, which were definitely different. I continue to love both, but was always curious about what happened to split them.

This book doesn't really tell that story, but it show more does fill in a few missing pieces. Instead, it's a much broader history of the authors and the comic, but told in short bursts of text wedged between lots of art, including storyboards for an animation that never came to be, lots of design drawings for the movies, comic covers, and a side project comic about pirates.

I did like that it sort of explained why the second TPB was so all over the place. There is a lot of fun to be had in this art book. show less

I was inspired to read this ridiculousness after my friend Tim showed me the movie version. It sparked my interest and I had to know more about this beer swilling, kangaroo screwing, tank loving, she devil. The comics did not disappoint. I don't know how I made it this far into my life never having heard of Tank Girl. She's ridiculous and nearly defies definition. She's the most badass chick in Australia and she kicks butt and takes names second. She lives for the moment and has no agenda show more beyond her own personal enjoyment. I will definitely be checking out the rest of the comics. The characters are bat shit insane, the story line is barely follow-able, and the inside jokes and little notes are a real treat. Soo glad I got introduced to Tank Girl. Better late than never! show less

This "remastered" version presents the Tank Girl series in its original black and white and in chronological order of when they first appeared.

Tank Girl is the mutated child of Madonna and GI Joe, living in an apocalyptic Aussie outback with a few teenage mutant punk rock kangaroos thrown in. While the author and artist claim to have created this comic in rebellion against the pathos of MTV, the truth is Tank Girl could only have come out of that generation (late 80s, early 90s). It's short show more episodic pieces, laced with pop culture and zany antics would have been right at home with the other animated shows appearing on that channel an others during that time period. It's all about spectacle and objectification an wackadoodle encounters. Many of the stories only barely make sense, if they even bother with sense at all, and there is little to no character development. Event flashes to event like a series of quick paced music videos (though there seems to be a tiny bit more cohesion toward the end of the book and you can see how the creators gained skill). The art is frantic and detailed, sometimes with so much going on its hard to know where to look, but it's fun to look at.

Tank Girl is a representation of Girl Power as much as Spice Girls was (though more punk rock than pop rock), half sexist exploitation even as she presents power. Nameless, Tank Girl is only Tank Girl. She, like all the characters within the comic, is entirely one dimensional. Never growing or changing (except in appearance and clothing), she is exactly as advertised, a tank driving, chain smoking, kangaroo kissing crazy woman wearing little more than a black bra and a devil-may-care smile. Absolutely fearless and with no ambition, she faces each bizarre challenge with a grin on her face. Half the time she's so busy doing here own thing, she's oblivious to the threats around her and gets out of sticky situations as much by luck as by any apparent skill (which other than her fearlessness and recklessness, I'm not sure she has).

In a sense, I love Tank Girl, because she allows me to live vicariously. I always wanted to be that person, with crazy dyed and wacky cut hair, adorned with chains and safety pins and vibrant colors, and sporting an I-don't-give-a-flying-f*ck-what-you think attitude. But I never had the courage and I still don't.

She's fun and free of cares, which unfortunately means she leaves a slew of damage and death in her wake. There are never any consequences for this; Tank Girl lives in blissful chaos.

That and the sexism are only minor concerns compared to how the black and aboriginal characters are handled. They are presented as caricatures, all with dreadlocks and big lips and often with tribal paint; one such character is a voodoo priest (even though that's not part of Australian Aboriginal culture as far as I'm aware), who actually says, "Ooga, ooga, ooga," while in the act of performing "magic." And it's just so racist. It doesn't happen often, but every time one of these caricatures appeared I cringed.

*sigh*
I like the idea of Tank Girl (and I even like the ridiculous movie adaptation), but I have a hell of a lot of reservations about aspects of it. show less

The main character, the eponymous Tank Girl, is an ex-military fighter who is constantly getting into madcap adventures and scrapes in her native Australia, whether it be confrontations with bounty hunters or run-ins with a criminal gang of talking kangaroos (yes, seriously).

This is an unusual graphic novel compilation of comic strips from the late 1980s. It has an alt-punk feel to it, which is not terribly surprising when the reader considers how one of the authors went on to become a show more founding member of the alternative rock band Gorillaz.

Although it is female-centered, there still seems to be a lot male ego shining through here -- whether it is gratuitous nudity or the many "b****h" and similar insults hurled at Tank Girl by others. It's hard to tell at times whether that is meant to satirical humor or what. There's also numerous spelling errors, some of which might be due to attempts at imitating vernacular Australian, but some of which just seem like mistakes. The authors are themselves not Australian, and some of their portrayals of both the outback and aboriginal people were questionable.

That all being said, there were moments when the comic was rather clever and even made me chuckle. One misadventure in particular echoed shades of the 1969 film The Italian Job in humorous ways. There were many pop culture references sprinkled throughout the book, although I must admit some of them went right over my head. There also seemed to be some "in-jokes" that I definitely missed. (For instance, I am pretty sure they were randomly inserting the names of some friends into some illustrations.)

While this book wasn’t my cup of tea, I can see echoes of Tank Girl’s influence in more modern graphic novels that I did enjoy, such as the New 52 and Rebirth runs of Harley Quinn and Paul Tobin’s Mystery Girl, with those titles’ similarly bad-talking, strong female anti-hero protagonists who have over-the-top adventures. show less