This week on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the Major Spoilers Crew are taking on Tank Girl from Titan Books.
As the name suggests, Tank Girl drives a tank, which is also her home. She undertakes a series of missions for a nebulous organization before making a serious mistake and being declared an outlaw for her sexual inclinations and her substance abuse. The comic centers on her misadventures with her boyfriend, Booga, a mutant kangaroo. The comic’s style was heavily influenced by punk visual art, and strips were frequently deeply disorganized, anarchic, absurdist, and psychedelic. The strip features various elements with origins in surrealist techniques, fanzines, collage, cut-up technique, stream of consciousness, and metafiction, with very little regard or interest for conventional plot or committed narrative.
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2 Comments
I’m wondering what the MajorSpoilers’ crew’s thoughts are on the 1995 Tank Girl movie starring Lori Petty, Naomi Watts, and Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcom McDowell).
Specifically, 4 things: How the comic was translated to the movie, what the movie’s seemingly cult following has done for the comic, how the soundtrack for the movie fit with A) the style of the movie and B) the style and theme of the comic, and finally, how the movie influenced, if at all, how comic book movies were perceived and how they were produced after its release.
Particularly for myself, the movie introduced me to the comic, and i was pleasantly surprised that the comic was 10x+ better than the movie ever could have been.
I’ve read the wiki page on the movie, and I know the views of the comic creators, but I want to know the geek standpoint on the issue.
Before Cool Britannia, before virtual band Gorillaz ,before the spice girls introduced the world to Girl Power, before Lara Croft, Jenny Sparks and The Boyz – there was Tank Girl.
At the time it was first published , I was at college, where i was discovering alternative music, girls and comics -this was my bible.
Tank Girl blends the vibe of alternative music of the time, with zany Brit humour, ultra violence, ninjas, beer swigging heroines, cross species sex, gangsters, the pacts with the devil ,Keith Chegwin (who? asks the spoilerite legion) jokes, stuffed koala toys. Tanks, subs, jets,guns, kangaroos, breasts that look like missiles and with plenty of attitude.
By no means a deep book, this is a fun roller coaster ride that not all sensibilities will enjoy.
As stated earlier, this book pre-dates the works of the Authority, the boyz and the various snot covered babes and provides the template (that has been often copied but never bettered) for a heroine with attitude.
This book gives the world of comics the middle finger whilst swigging on a can of XXXX. Ignore the lousy film (where’s the kangaroo intercourse?) and see where it all started. NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN