Forget Minnie the Minx, she’s all sugar and spice compared to Tank Girl. With her liking for beer, big guns and kangaroos, she became the anti-hero of late 80s comics culture in Britain, emerging some ten years after Judge Dredd and 2000AD revolutionised our homegrown comics. First appearing in the British anthology title, Deadline, she was the bad-mouthed brainchild of art students, Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett, now better know for his collaborations with Blur's Damon Albarn on the Gorillaz phenomenon. Those early comic strips are now remastered and gathered together in the first two volumes

Coming at a time of ten years of Thatcher government and the emergence of rave culture, Tank Girl is a sassy sexy product of the time. Her adventures are anarchic and unpredictable but filled with big explosions, booze and boobs. She's like the lovecbhild of Wolverine and the Fat Slags She's surrounded by a cast of equally wild characters such as her sometime boyfriend Booga the kangaroo, camp Koala, as well as Sub Girl and Jet Girl . Volume One has her taking on bounty hunters, outback bikers, and ancient spirit curses. But she's also finds herself delivering a cholostomy bag to the Australian President, and rescuing quality beer supplies from gangsters. These early black and white stories exude energy in their boldness. However, both the character as well as Martin and Hewitt's storytelling evolve in Volume Two which finds Tank Girl relocating to Britain. After the Summer of Love storyline, the tales erupt into psychedelic colour and become more surreal, becoming more self-reverential and parodic (with tributes to Jack Kerouac and Jimi Hendrix as well as Starsky and Hutch), abandoning tanks and wild antics in favour of exploring sex, drugs and a more introspection.

Hewlett's artwork explodes across the pages like narrative graffiti loosening panel structure in favour of more free-floating images and splash pages that almost shoot off the page. Along with Alan's script, these adventures are scattered with footnotes and references to their favourite movies, bands, or indeed TV series. Tank Girl is the loud and proud embodiment of pop culture seen from the perspective of late 80s. This feels not so much the work of angry young men. but more rebellious hedonistic youth. Even twenty years on their raw energy still gives the series a doc marten-booted kick against conventions.