The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Tank Girl: the gifting #1
Alan C Martin and Ashley Wood,
Published by IDW

Tank Girl. Just thinking about Tank Girl kicks in strong sensations of nostalgia in me; late 80s and early 90s, some unusual comics coming out in Britain called Deadline and Revolver, comics which were aimed at older readers like me who had grown up with comics, still loved them but were struggling to find enough good material that was aimed at someone above 15 years of age. Actually I remember Deadline and Revolver doing more than offering comics for 20 and 30 somethings – I remember them mixing up the ideas of what you could do in a strip and how you told a story. More than that I remember they achieved that elusive quality many try for but few attain – they were cool. Not just with comics readers, I mean, cool in the cultural sense, cool like the Fonz hugging a penguin on an ice floe; these were comics embraced by non comics readers, the indy music kids, the music press and other scenes that normally never came near a comic.

At college I’d see kids happily reading these comics and passing them around in the union bar, unashamed to show a comic in public because, dammit, they were cool (no matter how much Watchmen is acclaimed you generally didn’t see that being passed around by the cool crowd like that). And Tank Girl was the icon of that new, hip, British Comicdom, Cool Britannia for comics before the term was coined in the late 90s, appropriated by the oh-so-cool music set at colleges and the Rrrriot Grrrrls alike. She even achieved the ultimate street cool – Hewlett’s TG art was pinched by a legion of club promoters and pasted into cheap flyers stuck on walls advertising music nights. She was right there in the dancebeat heart of the happening subcultures. Scenting a buck even the mainstream dived into the sea of F**kgut beer cans with one of the oldest and most respected publishing houses, Penguin, buying the rights to print a collected black and white edition (which still sits on my shelves today). Not bad for a bald girl with bad personal hygiene, smelly knickers and a mutant kangaroo for a boyfriend.

(Jamie Hewlett’s art on the cover of the first issue of Deadline; ah we were so young and carefree back then…)

And that was part of the problem for me when I first heard that IDW was planning to resurrect Tank Girl. My second problem was that Jamie Hewlett wouldn’t be drawing her. Now back in the later 90s we had a couple of so-so Tank Girl mini-series, which I dutifully bought (and still have those as well, somewhere in a box), The Odyssey and Apocalypse. They weren’t awful – being written by comics greats like Peter Milligan (isn’t it time someone reprint Pete’s Skin graphic novel?) and Alan Grant they were always going to be interesting (in a related sidebar Milligan had previously worked with TG artist Hewlett on the bizarre and fondly remembered Hewligan’s Haircut for 2000AD). The problem was that they just didn’t feel right, the characters were there but the chemistry just wasn’t right, even with Hewlett doing art duties for the Odyssey.

So with a new revival you can understand I was a bit cynical, although conversely I was also excited at the same time. Again Hewlett would not be seen on the art front, which worried me – Jamie’s art is so much a part of TG that without it I find it hard to buy the characters as anything other than an imitation. It’s different for characters where a multitude of artists have worked on them over the years – Judge Dredd, Superman, their artists come and go; we develop preferences for some, but we are used to seeing different interpretations. With TG she was, visually, Jamie’s character and never felt right drawn by anyone else. Ah, but what’s this? Alan Martin, her original writer and co-creator would be returning to comics to script it – interesting, been a while since we heard from Alan. Oh and Ashley Wood was onboard to do the artwork? Hmmm, my optimism is starting to win out over my cynicism…

(Barney advises Booga on the best way to buy snugly fitting underwear for TG)

And so to this week’s new comics arrivals – in among them issue 1 of Tank Girl: the Gifting by Alan and Ash. And what did I think? I liked it. It didn’t smack of an attempt to flog an old horse, it felt good; it felt like they were doing it because they wanted to, not just for a commercial reason. It felt like Tank Girl, just a bit older, but that’s fine because I got older too (yes, I know, I don’t look it, thank you – the secret it to always moisturise, kids); it has that feeling, a bit like Grosse Point Blank, where people have reached their 30s but still not done the old-fashioned settle down, get mortgage, 2.2 children and the dog and trips to the zoo lifestyle but they obviously aren’t exactly what they were when younger either. There is no main story going on in the first issue, instead we get several short tales, segments out of TG’s life, which again is fine since TG works perfectly without an over-arching narrative; it’s always been more about the characters. We get little vignettes into the life of TG and Booga in their 30s, still wasters, still drinking too much, making references to crap telly and good music.

We get pooh in a handbag (don’t ask, you have to read it), Booga trying to buy sexy underwear for TG’s birthday but not knowing her bra size (men, eh?) so Barney helpfully points to her own breasts and tells him he has to grope TG and work out the cup size using his hands. Yeah, you know how that’s going to go and frankly I didn’t care that I knew how it would play out because it was still funny. We even get a nod to the old cartoony schemes and casual violence of the old days with TG strapping on a giant rocket Wile. E. Coyote style to cross Australia in seconds to catch a gig and people being chopped in half. And it is silly and it is still funny. And guess what? I didn’t even have a problem with the art. Nope, it isn’t Jamie Hewlett’s work, but Ashley Wood (who rates as a brilliant artist in my book anyway) delivers a very cool style which somehow, despite not trying to imitate Jamie’s original work, manages to reference it at a level old fans will recognise and appreciate – he delivers art which suits the story and characters perfectly and manages to make them very much Tank Girl while still very Ashley Wood too, a pretty neat trick to pull off.

(when you’re in a hurry to cross a continent to catch your fave band playing, always fly Acme Rockets)

I’m not sure if new readers will be picking this up or if it will mostly be older fans like me, but I think those older fans will really enjoy the new TG. Alan hasn’t tried to remake her or revamp her into a 21st century makeover, but neither has he left her just as she was; she’s the same TG, but a bit older – time’s passed a bit for her as it has for those of us who read her originally and that works pretty well for me. And I can’t think on anyone else apart from Jamie who could have handled the art so well and still made it feel like proper Tank Girl. In fact the only problem I had with the first issue is that it is so short – I was just really getting back into the world of TG when it ended and I had several pages of adverts where I thought I would have had more comics, which was annoying. Although it does leave me wanting the next issue even more.

On a slightly related note, Kenny found this site today (via Journalista), selling the Ultimate Member Limited; what are these designer, incredibly expensive items in their seductive metallic shades with names like ‘The Hon Vane Sackful Smythe’ and ‘Dick Ward’? Well, they come from a design by Tank Girl and Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett and they are incredibly expensive, designer, er, how can I put this… marital aids? Yeah, that’s right, Jamie Hewlett-inspired expensive designer vibrators! Given Alan used to complain about how Jamie had the unnerving habit of drawing penises on any scrap of paper it seems somehow appropriate.