Good, vulgar, a romp in pure unadulterated selfish fun ( )

I wasn't sure I was going to like this, BUT I TOTALLY LOVE IT. ( )

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 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. ( )

Can't believe I didn't read this back in the 80's/90's. I love the art, but thought it was just kinda silly for the first couple issues until I got into the flow of things. There are many references to people that I didn't get and it seemed kind of strange to keep referring to these people when you weren't sure who your audience was, so after a while it just got kind of irritating.

No I just need to watch the movie and my training will be complete. ( )

Australia is the setting for this very audacious comic book. There are talking Kangaroos, which interact with the protagonist, a woman called "Tank Girl." She owns a tank. It is a post-apocalyptic Australia, where things change between the panels. It's kind of interesting reading, requiring a little appeciation for the punk and hard-core subcultures of the 90's. If you already like that, you must check this book out, because it will stretch your preconceived notions to the limits of respectability and beyond. It's fun to read, and it will begin to endear you to the protagonist by the time you finish.