Customer Reviews

The Cream of Tank Girl

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Length:: 0:20 Mins

The Cream of Tank Girl starts off with a funny piece by Alan Martin, looking at their student years, tracing back at how it got started.

After that, the rest of the book is all art. The pages are filled with sketches, cover art, comics, photos, unpublished and rejected illustrations, storyboards, screenplays (for the movie) and a lot of other stuff from random publications. Captions are provided for a few illustrations, looking back to the hectic days when they are trying to get Tank Girl to print.

I still find the kangeroo dude, Booga, disturbing, probably because of the human anatomy without a human head. There are also some refined character designs for Booga, Tank Girl and her tank at the back.

Tank Girl fans will love this book. It's should be pretty inspirational for artists too for the graphic art.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Tank Girl remains a relatively popular comic across the ocean, but most Americans have only heard of Tank Girl from the 1995 live-action movie. The movie might serve as a way to introduce people to this quirky character, but it still doesn't do justice to the comic and was panned by many fans of the comic. THE CREAM OF TANK GIRL, on the other hand, is a book written by co-creators Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett that is aimed solely at fans of Tank Girl in celebration of Tank Girl's 20th Anniversary. If you're looking for an anthology of Tank Girl comics, look somewhere else. There are a few comics in the book, but THE CREAM OF TANK GIRL is basically a collection of sketches, comic and magazine covers, newspaper articles, never-before-seen illustrations, and even a snippet from the TANK GIRL screenplay all with commentary from Alan Martin.

THE CREAM OF TANK GIRL is a book that fans of Tank Girl will definitely want to own. It's also a book that graphic artists and those who appreciate graphic novels might enjoy.

I love this book! Anyone who is a fan of Tank Girl, Jamie Hewlett or Alan Martin will want this book! It's a treasure with many comic pages never seen and lots of secret artwork. I wish there was even more! Wonderful!

Tank Girl started life in the edgy British comic & style magazine, Deadline, and since then has taken off into comics, graphic novels, novels and a movie. If you only know Tank Girl from the movie, then you haven't seen her at her best, and you are in for a treat. And if you're a dedicated Tank Girl fan and want to know how it all began, this is the book that takes you back to the start: Alan Martin's very funny commentary describes his and Jamie Hewlett's irreverent student days in the south of England; describes how the character came about and then how she developed a life of her own, taking her own unique style and personality out into the wider world where (almost in spite of herself) she has become a style icon, personifying punk sensibility and a very individual kind of independent womanhood. Lavishly illustrated with rare and never-before-seen artwork, as well as every Deadline cover featuring our heroine, this is a great book for Tank Girl fans, but also anyone interested in British style and design in the 1980s.

I'm a fan of art. I'm a fan of comic books. I'm a fan of well done art/sketch books. I'm a Jamie Hewlett fan. I'm a fan of Tank Girl. I'm a fan of Independent/subterranean music. THE CREAM OF TANK GIRL is a tasty blend of all these things whipped to the rim.

There are a few ART OF books out there, which have a lot less art than they do lots of text describing what you're looking at as you page through them. Thankfully, this is not one of those books. When the Gorillaz book, RISE OF THE OGRE, was released I quickly snapped it up... hoping for a book jam-packed with sweet never-before-seen JH illustrations. As it turns out, I'd purchased the wrong book. RotO was more of a spoof on those behind-the-music bios. It was not a Jamie Hewlett art book. TCoTG is the Jamie Hewlett book for which I've been (somewhat) impatiently waiting.

CREAM OF includes an intro and short bits written by writer/co-creator Alan Martin, a smattering of Tank Girl strips by Jamie Hewlett and (fellow comic book genius) Philip Bond, covers and sketches, unused TG animation storyboards, as well as snippets of A/J's Captain Pyrate and The 16s strips. The book is devoid of long-winded, egotistical dissections of inspirations and techniques. Instead, Alan and Jamie opted to fill the book with as much TG goodness as possible. The result is enough to satisfy long-time fans and work as a strong introduction to the world of the character and the creative team. THE ART & CRAFT OF A COMICS ICON, indeed.

Absolutely brilliant!

The Cream of Tank Girl comes from a cult icon and celebrates the 20th anniversary of her appearance with the release of a fine new book, THE CREAM OF TANK GIRL. 8 monthly comics, 6 graphic novels and more have appeared from the Tank Girl icon - and this hardback coffee-table art book presents some of the finest - and many unseen - art from her creation. A winning, involving pick any graphic novel library will appreciate.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

First - I could be wrong, but the sense I get from the other reviews here is that they are from the publisher or otherwise connected; they don't read like genuine fan reviews but more as publicity blurbs. Tank Girl is geared towards the juvenile teen, the stunted pothead; as opposed to the comics oriented towards geeks, this contains ample pot and potty humor to keep a pimply faced teen delinquent feeling validated. The stories are incoherent and uninteresting. All that said, I love the art - it flows, it has an energy and dynamism and is a throw back to 1980s Brit punk (which actually makes it feel quite dated). So, there you have it, take a look and be mildly entertained.