The best thing about this book is the element that ensures it passes me by without a wave, it is bursting with a youthful swaggering confidence, a cocky sense of its own worth and the corresponding lack of worth of everyone older that it. This is clearly work created by people in the fever pitch of youthful creativity, they were gulping in the world and spraying it back out again with a strong sarcastic attitude that they were where it was at. Given the talent displayed in the book the confidence was well founded, the stories still crackle with the unconstrained energy and sheer in-your-faceness that remain vital and attractive today. The art by Jamie Hewlett is stunning, the extraordinary expressiveness of his lines and the great details are fresh and crisp after twenty years, they have not aged at all. Tank Girl herself is full of life and vitality, an anarchic live wire than will not, cannot be constrained by any authority. Her smile is a thing of beauty.
I am too far from the state of life and experience that the book captures so successfully to be able to slip into it. I do not miss it either, nostalgia does not unlock the stories for me. In my middle-aged surburban state I am what Tank Girl is opposing with all her heart and wit. I can appreciate but not enjoy. I am sure that there will be numerous reader for whom this will be a glorious shot to the imagination and they will be swept away by the wonderful Tank Girl, I hope so, the talented creators deserve it.
