(Titan Comics, 2013)

Review by Raymond Jacques

WRITTEN BY:  Alan C. Martin
ARTWORK BY:  Warwick Johnson-Cadwell
DESIGNER:  Rob Farmer
LETTERING BY:  Andrew James & Jon Chapple

ATTENTION! Tank Girl, Jet Girl, Barney, & Booga are all back with their own particular brand of nihilistic absurdity in Alan C. Martin & Warwick Johnson-Cadwell’s Solid State Tank Girl #1…AND IT IS SO DAMN FUN! It has been a sheer joy to read and review an advanced copy of this book and would love to read more (hint ,hint).

Solid State Tank Girl is a well needed shot in the arm to a squeaky clean industry direly needing a nice, healthy dose of profane, absurd, psychedelic, punk rock anarchy & FUN (which this comic delivers in spades)!

Alan C. Martin (who co-created Tank Girl with Jamie Hewlett in 1988) brings us a wonderfully crass and surreal story here:  Mixing in equal parts Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope & the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage on a mission within Tank Girl’s kangaroo companion that results in some silly sci-fi fun and an unexpected detour to the marsupial’s left bollock. Like I said, FUN! There is also a awesomely pointless back up story that makes me feel no poorer for having read it.

Warwick Johnson-Cadwell has an idiosyncratic, surrealist art style that is all at once elegant and grotesque. With his comically contorted character faces and stylistically misshapen body forms his work absolutely suited to this bizarre book.

All in all, this book is great, dirty, irreverent fun that calls back to a time of rebellious adventurousness in Independent Comics. I enjoyed the hell out of this book and look forward to the next 3 issues of this four part mini-series.

Congratulations, Titan Comics, Alan Martin, & Warwick Johnson-Cadwell: You have a fun filled, bizarre hit on your hands! NEW READERS: HOP ON IN!

5 of 5 Stars.

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You can Follow Raymond Jacques on Twitter: @danceformyhorse