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Tank Girl 1 (Tank Girl (Remastered) #1)

4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 · rating details · 1,261 ratings · 59 reviews

She’s back to wreck her own unique brand of havoc! From the depths of the outback she charges, astride her fabulous tank! Run for the Hills! It’s... Tank Girl!

Join everybody’s favourite beer-swilling, chain-smoking, kangaroo-worrying lunatic as she blitzes her way through a dazzling array of bizarre adventures, including bounty hunting, delivering colostomy bags to Austral...more

Paperback, Anniversary Edition, 128 pages

Published April 28th 2009 by Titan Books (first published 1993)

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Aug 04, 2012 Keith rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The funny thing about Tank Girl -- well, there's lots of funny things, but one odd thing about reading it in a collected format -- is that the creators themselves say in the forward to the first book that they feel that the entire series is at its peak right here. I'd tend to agree with them. These early strips are the definition of lightning in a bottle -- so jam-packed with insanity, humor and violence that the panels literally spill over with dialogue, scribbled tangents and ridiculous ideas....more

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May 17, 2013 Andrea Blythe rated it 3 of 5 stars

3 1/2 stars

This "remastered" version presents the Tank Girl series in its original black and white and in chronological order of when they first appeared.

Tank Girl is the mutated child of Madonna and GI Joe, living in an apocalyptic Aussie outback with a few teenage mutant punk rock kangaroos thrown in. While the author and artist claim to have created this comic in rebellion against the pathos of MTV, the truth is Tank Girl could only have come out of that generation (late 80s, early 90s). It's...more 3 1/2 stars

This "remastered" version presents the Tank Girl series in its original black and white and in chronological order of when they first appeared.

Tank Girl is the mutated child of Madonna and GI Joe, living in an apocalyptic Aussie outback with a few teenage mutant punk rock kangaroos thrown in. While the author and artist claim to have created this comic in rebellion against the pathos of MTV, the truth is Tank Girl could only have come out of that generation (late 80s, early 90s). It's short episodic pieces, laced with pop culture and zany antics would have been right at home with the other animated shows appearing on that channel an others during that time period. It's all about spectacle and objectification an wackadoodle encounters. Many of the stories only barely make sense, if they even bother with sense at all, and there is little to no character development. Event flashes to event like a series of quick paced music videos (though there seems to be a tiny bit more cohesion toward the end of the book and you can see how the creators gained skill). The art is frantic and detailed, sometimes with so much going on its hard to know where to look, but it's fun to look at.

Tank Girl is a representation of Girl Power as much as Spice Girls was (though more punk rock than pop rock), half sexist exploitation even as she presents power. Nameless, Tank Girl is only Tank Girl. She, like all the characters within the comic, is entirely one dimensional. Never growing or changing (except in appearance and clothing), she is exactly as advertised, a tank driving, chain smoking, kangaroo kissing crazy woman wearing little more than a black bra and a devil-may-care smile. Absolutely fearless and with no ambition, she faces each bizarre challenge with a grin on her face. Half the time she's so busy doing here own thing, she's oblivious to the threats around her and gets out of sticky situations as much by luck as by any apparent skill (which other than her fearlessness and recklessness, I'm not sure she has).

In a sense, I love Tank Girl, because she allows me to live vicariously. I always wanted to be that person, with crazy dyed and wacky cut hair, adorned with chains and safety pins and vibrant colors, and sporting an I-don't-give-a-flying-f*ck-what-you think attitude. But I never had the courage and I still don't.

She's fun and free of cares, which unfortunately means she leaves a slew of damage and death in her wake. There are never any consequences for this; Tank Girl lives in blissful chaos.

That and the sexism are only minor concerns compared to how the black and aboriginal characters are handled. They are presented as caricatures, all with dreadlocks and big lips and often with tribal paint; one such character is a voodoo priest (even though that's not part of Australian Aboriginal culture as far as I'm aware), who actually says, "Ooga, ooga, ooga," while in the act of performing "magic." And it's just so racist. It doesn't happen often, but every time one of these caricatures appeared I cringed.

*sigh*
I like the idea of Tank Girl (and I even like the ridiculous movie adaptation), but I have a hell of a lot of reservations about aspects of it.
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Apr 27, 2011 Meg Powers rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comics, light-hearted-apocalypses, read-in-2011

I had been putting off reading Tank Girl for a long time. My disinterest was probably a product of poor associations, either from watching the wretched movie (Iggy Pop dressed in an embarrassing kangaroo costume...bleeeehhh) or dealing with annoying teen-punks who loved the comic. Well, I've exhausted my school library's comic collection, and the Jamie Hewlett art looked appealing, so what the hell.

The art and lettering is great-the stories and dialogue, not so much. Each page is beautiful to l...more I had been putting off reading Tank Girl for a long time. My disinterest was probably a product of poor associations, either from watching the wretched movie (Iggy Pop dressed in an embarrassing kangaroo costume...bleeeehhh) or dealing with annoying teen-punks who loved the comic. Well, I've exhausted my school library's comic collection, and the Jamie Hewlett art looked appealing, so what the hell.

The art and lettering is great-the stories and dialogue, not so much. Each page is beautiful to look at, with a lot of anarchic paneling,psychedelic new-wavey aboriginal motifs, cool punk aesthetics, and a lot of outfits I would totally wear. Hewlett also manages to render a mutant punk kangaroo that doesn't come across as embarrassingly furry-fetishistic,unlike a lot of other anthropomorphic comic characters (I'm looking at you, Omaha), in spite of its inter-species sexual relationship with Tank Girl. These were re-printed in color for Dark Horse, and I would love to see it in original black and white.

The lettering is gritty and fits the punk aesthetic really well. The actual writing gets too chaotic, however. A lot of the slang is confusing, the action and motivations behind the characters are confusing (aside from Tank Girl herself-her motivation is pretty consistently getting plastered), the dialogue is a crazy mess (partly because the punctuation is awful) and is cluttered with a ton of references that go way over my head. The comic seems to be a big inside joke for the creators and their friends. There are little messages scrawled over all the panels that have nothing to do with the action and get annoying. I am curious to read later Tank Girl comics, which feature different writers and artists; I'm sure the inside-joke quality dissipates by that point.
There is also a lot of fourth-wall-breakage, something I am never a fan of.

Also, I am a pretty crusty girl, fond of gross-outs and general scuzziness, but sometimes Tank Girl's tendencies just kinda ick me out. However, if you want to see panels of hot skinhead babes making out with kangaroos,farting, and taking craps, this is the comic for you!

In spite of my ambivalence towards Tank Girl, I am probably going to read more, even if just for the art.

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Sep 06, 2010 Trina rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So .... this was different. My reasoning for reading the series was that I am one of the few people who enjoyed Tank Girl the movie but felt it was missing something. I wanted to get the rest of the story and the graphic novel seemed to be the place to scratch that itch. After struggling through the first Tank Girl graphic novel ..... I have hives! It was a disjointed mess of ideas, musings, scary dreams, and a lot of 'what ifs'. I think the connotation of "graphic novel" feed into the difficult...more

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Sep 10, 2009 Bonnie Burton rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

nybody who tells you a girl can't drive a tank should be run over and then drowned in cheap beer.

Tank Girl kicks butt and doesn't take whiny prisoners. She and
her other grrlfriends, Jet Girl and Subgirl, have one thing in
mind: To have fun wreaking havoc across the desert.

In the beginning....Tank Girl has a long, sorded history beginning with her two dads, Jaime Hewlett and Alan Martin.After plenty of cheap beer and not much else, they came up with our beloved doll of destruction, Tank Girl. And...more

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Feb 21, 2010 Raj rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, graphic-novel

I came to this after very much enjoying the film adaptation of Tank Girl. This volume collects the first 15 strips of Hewlett and Martin's very, very strange comic. Unfortunately, I must confess to not particularly enjoying much of it. As I say, it's very strange, sometimes non-linear, irreverent and just a little too bonkers for my tastes.

There's little continuity between stories, and the whole thing of being on the run from the military just seems to fizzle out by the end. In saying that, ther...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Helmut Barro rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comics

Ist das Mädel cool...

Wow, hier gehts richtig ab. Da werden Konventionen zeichnerisch und stilistisch weggewischt als hätte sie es nie gegeben. Die Zeichnungen sind unstrukturiert und die kaum vorhandene Panelstruktur ständig durchbrochen. Die Geschichten sind völlig inhaltslos und drehen sich nur darum, wie man jetzt an Zigaretten kommt oder an Bier. Eigentlich hauptsächlich Bier. Bier ist das wichtigste in diesem Comic, außer den Drogen natürlich, die man sich meist mit extremer Waffengewalt be...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Bookworm_five rated it 4 of 5 stars

I. Love. Tank Girl. The hilarious art. The totemic trickster motif. All the napalm. Anyone who does not have at least a little bit of a crush on TG is probably dead.
This particular volume introduces us to the eponymous Girl of the Tank and introduces a few basic laws of the Australian outback:

1. Tank Girl is basically invincible.

It is stupid to go up against TG. She is the living, belching embodiment of chaos and misspent youth. At the same time, she is a vector for cosmic forces of entropy tha...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Olli Booms rated it 3 of 5 stars

Tank Girl was the one 'big' UK comic series I hadn't read much of - well, anything at all. I knew that I liked Jamie Hewlett's art style and I had liked many of the recent collections from 2000AD and Titan, so I thought to myself 'Can't really go wrong with another Brit comic, can you now?'

So, Tank Girl Vol.1: I still like Jamie Hewlett's art, and I pretty much enjoyed the crassness/trashyness/irreverence of the book's anarcho-feminist(?) attittude - at least in small amounts. Which is probably...more

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Jun 21, 2012 Jenn rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

Eh. I bought this for my dude, who was a big fan of the Tank Girl movie, and picked it up last night. Not my cup of tea. I found the artwork confusing and most of the in-jokes tired (although they were probably fresh when they were written.) So, wev. I probably won't read any more. But can I just digress here a minute to say that I don't get it when people go on about how Tank Girl is so feminist? Evidently violent and not prissy makes one feminist. You know, I get it. It's really enjoyable to s...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Nathan Herald rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-challenge

book 1 of 1000

I love Tank Girl, and figured this was the best place to start my year long trek across graphic novel-dom.

This collects the early years of Tank Girl, from kangaroo snogging to stealing stolen beer from the mob. A total in-your-face thrill a minute ride with the sexy and psychotic girl with a kangaroo boyfriend and a tank.

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Nov 03, 2012 Delicious Strawberry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: alan-martin, graphic-novel

The only real issue I had with this book was that some of the font in the text bubbles were hard to read, a better script could have been used here and there, but overall Tank Girl is a solid and entertaining graphic novel with quirky humor - it's not for everyone - and a worthy part of any graphic novel fan's collection.

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Jan 14, 2012 Rachel Searcey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Crude, crass, irreverent, and senselessly violent. If you expect anything else you're clearly a wanker. Tank Girl is dumb, but not as dumb as her kangaroo boyfriend Booga, and their assortment of Outback cretins. They drink beer, make stuff explode, and generally cause havoc, all at Tank Girls' behest.

The art is gorgeous, with wonderfully detailed ink work and funny little jokes and song lyrics shoved in every available empty space.

Don't expect some awesomely epic storyline or plot, this first...more

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Feb 20, 2011 Ego Thurman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourite-reads

As a comic maker, the Tank Girl series has been a huge influence on me. Each page absoloutley screams cool, combining pop culture, music refrences, violence and toilet humour to form one of the best written and visually interesting punk/mod comics of all time.

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Apr 27, 2012 Corey Regalado rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not to say it was bad, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Only got halfway. It's witty and Tank Girl is a real treasure, but I don't enjoy enough of the book to continue on. It's very over-stimulating. If you like easy-to-read comics, save this one for later.

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Jun 11, 2010 Atlas rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Recommended to Atlas by: A friend of mine

For some odd reason I was surfing through Goodreads and found this Graphic Novel I used to read which was Tank Girl.
I mean sexy girl, tanks, an apocolyptic world and fun loving characters with guns included!
Whats not to love? Seriously now..

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Mar 23, 2009 Lara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Everyone should read this! I dont normally read comics but someone told me to give this a go and im glad i did! Really funny and weird, the writer is a nut.

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Mar 03, 2013 Therésa (Tessans Bokblogg) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Amen Tank Girl då! Haha :P Det enda tråkiga är att jag inte förstår vissa skämt för jag är inte uppvuxen på slutet av 80-talet. Jag föddes bara då, buuuh!

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Dec 17, 2009 Juliette rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved these graphic novels when they came out in the 1990s. I still love the idea of Tank Girl. Too bad a lot of these are out of print.

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Sep 30, 2011 Jon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comics, fashion, music

Random, violent, insulting, and humorous. Glad to read them, although I know I didn't get all the references.

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Jan 11, 2008 Osho rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2007

It's not often that a person can say they've read two books with mutant kangaroo characters in a month, but I've accomplished it with my 125th and last book of 2007. The illustrations are fun and the lettering is hard to read. The story, such as it is, is pointless and meandering, but you're not reading it for the story, are you? You're reading it to enjoy a scantily-clad, bandage-wearing, cheap-beer-swilling, anarchistic young woman who drives a supertank and has sex with a kangaroo. If you wan...more

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Jun 24, 2007 Michael Alexander rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

OMG. And I don't use that lightly. This thing is so anarchic, so drunken, so violent, so Australian, that there are no other words. Everyone totally has a crush on Tank Girl, she totally is a jerk, it's hilarious even when it's crushingly dumb, and it's even funnier when it's smart. Little to say except that there's kangaroo sex, ultra-violence, binge-drinking, lots of vomit, aboriginal curses and lots of loopy punk mythology. N FIGHTS! Not even vaguely like the dorky alternaculture movie (which...more

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Dec 27, 2008 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comics

AMAZING.

Tank Girl is a must-have for underground comic lovers. Don't see the movie. Read the books.

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Dec 22, 2008 Lee rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

if you were to hypothetically model your conduct after a character from a graphic novel, might i suggest tank girl as a worthy candidate?

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May 17, 2012 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hot. Sexy. Amazing.

You need to read this. It's hilarious, and I can't help but want to be her.

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Jul 29, 2011 Erin Panjer added it · review of another edition

The art in this novel is great, intensely creative and dense to boot!

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Apr 25, 2013 E.B. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, favorites, 2013

Crazy good art. This volume is Tank Girl at her best.

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Aug 11, 2011 Chandra rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Deliciously strange and awkward. Wankers!!

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Oct 14, 2012 Zoe B. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Three words: Tank Girl Rocks.

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Aug 07, 2012 BurningYourBooks rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comics, mind-fuck

Oh god, this comic. My youth! My Youth!

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title link	preview: Tank Girl 1
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Tank Girl 1 (Tank Girl (Remastered) #1)

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