A chain smoking, swearing, violent, tank driving, mutated kangaroo shagging, partially dressed girl who's an outlaw in post apocalyptic Australia. That's the premise for Tank Girl and with that set up comes the marmite effect, you will either love it or hate it because just like the film released in 1995 Tank Girl is very hit and miss, which has ultimately led to its cult status. You will find yourself enjoying one strip and then feeling the next one should never have been created and especially not published, although Deadline magazine who originally published the Tank Girl series was a magazine intended for new comic talent who were otherwise un-publishable and therefore can be excused for letting the un-enjoyable strips through. It has to be said though, that Tank Girl can be an extremely satisfying experience even with the questionable parts.

When it works it can be tremendously funny, such as a strip surrounding a potentially exploding penis unless it is covered with a special Xmas pudding, and then the pudding eaten off of it. For those brilliant moments that are completely absurd, Tank Girl should be praised.

Written by Alan Martin and spinning out of 80's culture where Margaret Thatcher was in power and punk rock was on the up, you will find Tank Girl littered with many references to celebrities of the time including a whole strip surrounding 'The Smiths'. The writing style of Tank Girl feels like it was crafted using the following method: Get a blunderbuss, fill it with a collection of absurd of ideas revolving around a tank and an outlaw on small pieces of paper, fire it in the air, wait for them to float down and then make a story based on what sits next to each other. There is no continuity other than the cast, and the chapter index at the beginning of the volume indicates that the episodes were not published in the order they are declared to follow (e.g. episode 32 was published in Jan 1995 and episode 36 was published in April 1994) and therefore there are no story arcs longer than one episode.

Primarily drawn by Jamie Hewlett, who went on to help create renowned band Gorillaz, you can immediately see the resemblance in style. Unlike Gorillaz the art in Tank girl is more comparable with more commonplace graffiti; as there is a multi-layered approach, with each pane not only showing the action of Tank Girl and company but also small little comedic effects hidden in plain sight such as a label on a t-shirt that constantly changes or a person doing something random behind the main cast. With the amount of drawing in each pane however, this sometimes makes the page feel overcrowded and overwhelming especially with the fact that the comic was originally published in black and white and there are very few colour segments throughout the volume. Though the black and white publishing may explain why Jamie may have felt the need to cram in as much as possible because when you do reach the colour segments you notice a step change in the amount drawn in each space and the white space within the black and white sections does feel lacking.

So the one sentence sum up – A collection of disjointed comic strips with little to no interconnectivity other than the cast that fail to ‘blow’ you away, though the over the top anarchistic action will pose a laugh or two in small doses.

Need To Know:

Pages: 96

Artwork: Cluttered and drawn in graffiti like manner yet shows the promise of what would later become the cleaner and more widely known Gorillaz artwork.

Plot: No overall arc to follow.

Re-Readability: Not for plot but you will find yourself finding something new each time in the artwork.

Buy or Borrow: Borrow

Favourite Moment: SPOILER WARNING: A special Christmas pudding being placed onto kangaroo genitals and then eaten.

Worst Moment: The Jet Girl strip. Inspires You To: Browse the web and find your favourite Gorillaz video (mines 19-2000) and have an over the top sing song whilst admiring the wacky videos.