Comic - 21st Century Tank Girl #1
Out now, Steve Taylor-Bryant gets all excited as Jamie Hewlett returns to Tank Girl in the 21st century...
Story: Alan C. Martin
Artists: Brett Parson, Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Jim Mahfood, Jamie Hewlett, Craig Knowles, Jonathan Edwards
Letters: Jim Campbell (and the artists)
Publisher: Titan Comics
I’ve always loved Tank Girl. It is my kind of comic, the film was as crazy as the images on the page, and it just spoke to my own level of insanity that here was a character with flaws and serious mental health issues. Tank Girl co-creators Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett return with a collection that features various artists all bringing a new dimension to the anti-heroine. Various stories explore Tank Girl’s inner workings and mentality and, as a book of micro stories, it really does work well. From the first story, the mental Space is Ace, the collection twists and changes.
Easy is a story presented in a way that I hadn’t seen before because there is absolutely no dialogue. Martin tells a typical Tank Girl story (girl with tank fights people often with tanks and wins) but does it completely through sound effects and explosions, yet it still works really well. The Runny Man mixes The Hunger Games and Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi whilst absolutely taking the piss with tongue in cheek, and shows the sense of the brazen, ridiculous humour that attracted me to the character all those years ago.
You get less of an insight into Tank Girl than some people may want but for those who don’t really know the character it is a great jumping in point that should encourage you to go back and source previous collections and issues. It is not an instantly classic collection by any means but any Tank Girl is welcome in this office and if this the springboard for much more then hurrah!
Images - Titan Comics.
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