Is comic remaster worth it for Tank Girl?
Published Thursday October 29th, 2009
As mentioned in prior reviews, Titan has reprinted the original Tank Girl comic books and strips in a series books.
Unlike the previous editions, these new editions are tagged as remastered.
Although remastered is a well-overused and debatable term, they present the stories in chronological order based on their released dates. Not only that, they're also in black and white, as they were originally printed from October 1988 to February 1990 in the pages of Deadline.
A little bit of background information:
The British team of Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin created Tank Girl in the 1987. The character first appeared in a faux-ad in Atomtan.
That appearance made somewhat of a buzz with the right people. As a result, Hewlett and Martin began producing Tank Girl comic stories for the small anthology series Deadline.
Set in a somewhat post-apocalyptic future (with many then-current cultural references), the stories were basically about a female bounty hunter without many morals. Her main interests appeared to be sex, booze, money and violence.
Progressively, the stories kept building a larger fan base for the character. As such, the stories were reprinted by other companies, like Penguin and Dark Horse. Some editions in the 1990s were coloured with computers.
Eventually, in the early-1990s, MGM's United Artists approached Hewlett & Martin with interest to adapt Tank Girl into a live action feature film.
By today's standards, it's a common practice for comic creators to be solicited in that fashion but in the '90s, it didn't happen very often. Therefore, Hewlett & Martin bit on the Hollywood worm and were led down a path of regret.
"Why?" you may ask yourself.
Here's a simple answer: Tank Girl (1995) is largely considered to be a big budget piece of shit of a movie. Even Hewlett & Martin thinks that it is.
To add insult to injury, the contract was written in a way which allowed the producers to make the movie any way they wished and to virtually ignore the duo should they feel the need.
Well, the producers didn't entirely ignore them. The duo designed certain props, like the tank, and was allowed onset but had no say over anything else.
Surprise, surprise: the movie tanked financially.
It tanked so badly that the team, more or less, decided to move on to other projects while Tank Girl comic books sales plummeted.
Nostalgia:
As with almost any product, there's a product life cycle to think about.
Tank Girl "the product" has come back in recent years. The sales are not necessarily phenomenal but exist and, thanks (or is that "tanks"?) to the passage of time, Hewlett & Martin are feeling nostalgic about their creation.
That brings us to Tank Girl One, the first of Titan's remastered series of Tank Girl books that are collectively celebrating the first two decades of the character.
The 14 stories presented in One show, sort of, how she obtained a tank and met some of the supporting characters, like Booga.
By the last page, an evolution can be seen in both the art style used and how the stories are told. In some cases, even if the stories have a linear narrative they come off as scatter-brained randomness (which can sometimes be a very good quality!).
As bonus material, One includes an introduction by Martin, along with photographs, rare artwork, and a cover gallery.
Tank Girl One (Remastered): 6/10
Publisher: Titan Publishing Group Ltd.
Bernard C. Cormier is, among other things, a freelance writer and broadcaster. www.myspace.com/bernardccormier. www.twitter.com/bernardccormier. E-mail: Bernardccormier-gncb@hotmail.com © Bernard C. Cormier 2009
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