Everyone Loves Tank Girl #1

I read Martin and Hewitt’s Tank Girl as a teen in high school.  I was attracted to the rawness of the artwork as well as the bawdiness of the stories.  It was a four issue mini-series as recalled.  Hewitt went on to help develop with that guy from Blur the concept band Gorillaz, which has been successful in its own right.  Unlike most comic book series, the original issues were split into smaller stories, usually with some kind of punchline at the end.  Also infused into the comic was a lot of social satire, poking fun at a society obsessed with celebrity. 

Tank Girl has continued on with various different artists filling in with the same general bawdiness and social satire.

Everybody Loves Tank Girl carries on in that tradition, a series of bawdy tales ending with a kind of punchline at the end.  While Martin has remained on writing duties, Jim Mahford has taken over artist duty.

But comics have changed over the last twenty years.  The art has changed as well as the nature of story telling.  Even the nature of the set up has changed, all of which raises the question of whether the failure to Everyone Loves Tank Girl to change and adapt makes its outdated.

No doubt, the artwork is fun.  Every pictures is like one of those I Spy books for kids, except hidden in the pages are references to alternative culture.  Half the fun of the book is trolling through the images and finding a reference you know.  At least, that was the fun when you were sixteen and shaping your identity by adopting the looks, manners, and attitudes of others.

But as an adult, such pandering seems empty and shallow, and, for me at least, I feel the need for substance in the form of story.  Unfortunately, Alan Martin has a difficult time delivering. 

The first story appears to be a spoof of a home crashing reality television show, wherein Tank Girl gives a tour of her tank with Booga popping out here and there.  The punchline, a jab at Justin Bieber, falls a little flat.  It's as if Marfin was reaching, relying on a tired target to connect to his "angry punk rawk" audience.

But something is missing, the why? Why does she not want the records?  Why does she not like Justin Boobie, i.e., Bieber?  This isn't really a twist or unexpected.  The joke is dead on arrival.

Perhaps, the funniest story in the issue is "The Sixteenth Annual Australian Swearing Contest," in which Tank Girl and Booga compete against a third party, a reader drawn into the comic, to determine who can give the best swear.  Initially, Tank Girl wins.  Bat then the reader lets out a stream of curses which gives her the win.

With weak writing and artwork which cannot just live up to the oviginal artwork, this number one does not bode well for the rest of the series.