Flick: The Tank Girl Movie

Interview with Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin

At home with cult-trash-girls-and-guns gurus Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin - creators of the, by now legendary, TANK GIRL. A seminal work of late 20th Century drivel, their contribution. to multi-media, post-punk, deconstructionist art is poised somewhere between Derrida and a gnat's dropping.

As the wheels of Hollywood roll on the TANK GIRL movie (resulting in severe bruising and multiple contusions), FRANK WYNNE, editor of DEADLINE (The style magazine for underachievers in whose hallowed pages TANK GIRL appears) put to them a series of questions as the career down the fibre-optic highways of the Internet. The two sit, cool, laconic, unshaven, witty, urbane, giggling like five-year-olds suffering acid burnout, unable to get anything more coherent than drooling, and faced with a pressing deadline, the editor himself replies:

Who the fuck is TANK GIRL?
-I think the more important question is who the fuck are you? TANK GIRL is the mutant love child of Barbarella and Hanna Barbera; she is Mad Max designed by Malcolm McLaren. She is, first and foremost a second-hand punk whore moneyspinner roaming the outback in search of Spunk beer, horny kangaroos, and shitheads to shoot at.

Who is set to play her, or is the film animated?
-You don’t really play TANK GIRL. It’s more like demonic possession, so it doesn’t really matter. You shave your head, strap the boots on. check yourself in the mirror and think: "Fuck, I’m cool. I ’m ready for a crate of beer and quick shag, then blow away some innocent people."

Will the story (of the film) be taken from existing material?
-No. When we tried taking out the pointless self-indulgent jokes, gratuitous appearances by pop stars and throbbing boners, all that was left was two pages of pointless violence and sex. They based the new script on that.

How closely will the characterization follow the comics (particularly sexual overtones-crewing animals in particular)?
-MGM were a bit worried about what they saw as "the character’s overtly aggressive posturing and aspects of beastiality" in the original draft script. There was a tense moment when we thought of selling out completely. Abandoning the drugs, guns, beer and ’roo shagging and heading straight for a mainstream Steven Speilberg TANK GIRL. Then we woke up. Every moment of the film will be filled with bestiality, boozing, belching and ballistic missiles.

What will the budget be?
-There’s no budget. The actors and crew have agreed to be paid in beer cigarettes and collectable Star Wars figurines.

I’ve heard rumours that Deadline is going down the pan. Where will TANK GIRL go?
-Deadline has always been down the pan and never intended to crawl out of it. It’s healthy SUCK MY DICK coverage of cult comics, and cutting kulture will continue to stupefy those with an IQ in single figures down through the ages. TG on the other hand will branch out into a series of comics, books games, sex aids and ’collectable’ pieces of cheap plastic.

What does TANK GIRL find so special about kangaroos?
-Check your zoology books, techno fiends, and you’ll find that kangaroos have a forked penis - two dicks? Of course, TG really loves Booga for his mind.

What color was her hair to begin with?
-Black and white, then she dyed it using some letratone.

Does Tank Girl wear socks often?
-NO. NEVER! Seriously, - those photos of TG wearing socks that ran in the National Enquirer - they were FAKES. You can’t prove anything. We shredded the socks and burned the negatives.

What does the number 23 symbolize in the TG iconography - it keeps popping up in the comics?
-In the I-CHING (the book of changes) the number 23 is the pattern of chaos/breaking apart/entropy. In TANK GIRL the number 23 is a ruse for driving paranoid cocaine-addicts to suicide.

(In the film) will TG beat the devil, fight ninja’s, take her shirt off a lot, take drugs, get drunk, and blow a lot of things to smithereens?
-Did Bill Clinton inhale? She’ll be blitzed, blasted, bareassed and brandishing a bazooka before the credits roll!

Will we see the other characters from the strip - Camp Koala, Jet Girl, Sub Girl, etc.?
-Yep. Jet and Sub are yet to be cast, but after his ground breaking role in Philadelphia, we have $10 on Tom Hanks for Camp Koala.

Do Hewlett and Martin drink coffee? What kind? Does it inspire their creative output?
-Yes. As part of his contract Jamie demands pure Kenyan arabica to be fed on an IV drip hourly. Alan is still hibernating, so I guess he drinks CAMP coffee with chicory, though a random test of their blood failed to determine levels of caffeine in the resulting chemical stew.

What kind of cartoons/TV/books influenced Hewlett and Martin as kids? I’m asking ’cause lots of cartoon characters turn up in TANK GIRL.
-All of them. H&M’s basic motor and linguistic skills were developed watching Scooby Doo, The Hair Bear Bunch, Banana Splits, Thunderbirds, Sting Ray, U.F.O. and reading Kafka.

Name some female cartoon or comic characters that would make Hewlett and Martin run to the bog for a quick fiddle with Willie.
-You sad pathetic individual. We don’t want to hear about you jerking off to Wilma on the Flintstones! Mind you, I sometimes feel a stirring in my loins watching Woody Woodpecker’s little tail twitch.