A comiXologist Recommends
Written by Alan Martin
Art by Brett Parson
Tank Girl was my first comic. I was around 12 or 13 years old and I remember being totally captivated by her brazen IDGAF-ness. It seemed very important to me at a time when I was just starting to go through that rite of passage into womanhood, the one where grown men catcall you on the street and make you feel scared and shrink into yourself. Tank Girl was not scared. Tank Girl took up space. Tank Girl wore a bra top if she felt like it and just go ahead, I dare you to catcall her. I’ll always appreciate my mom’s endless patience with my adolescent attempts to reinvent my wardrobe, and in many ways my attitude, in Tank Girl’s image (maybe not with bra tops, but still…).
All of this is to say, I basically wanted to be Tank Girl. So it’s kind of crazy that 2 Girls 1 Tank is about an art gallerist named Mags who acquires Tank Girl’s tank and decides to become Tank Girl. (Before I worked at comiXology, I was an art historian. IS THIS ABOUT ME? Signs point to yes.)
I really like Brett Parson’s art (he also worked on 21st Century Tank Girl). I know, I know, you love Jamie Hewlett. I know. Me, too. But Parson does an excellent job keeping the anarchist vibe of Hewlett’s Tank Girl in play while giving it his own style. Stubborn Tank Girl purists should still check this book out, though. Alan Martin’s writing is just what you want in a Tank Girl book. It’s good, smart, vulgar fun, with lots of action and irreverence and friendship. Or at least, I’m hoping things end with Tank Girl and Mags becoming BFFs.
Tia Vasiliou is a Digital Editor at comiXology. She drives an SUV, which is not quite a tank but pretty close plus she swears a lot so maybe there is still hope for her becoming Tank Girl…?