On the last episode of Tank Girl…Rob didn’t especially like the titular, heavily-armed, cigarette-smoking female’s graphic novel, Carioca.  The story was a little light on everything: violence, character, and story.  It was an unusual, not entirely unwelcome sidestep from co-creator Alan C. Martin’s usual run with the character, but something was missing.

I’m happy to report that the Tank Girl of old is back in this latest outing from Titan Books, Everybody Loves Tank Girl.  Written by Martin with artwork by Jim Mahfood (Clerks, Grrl Scouts), ELTG is a return to the chaotic, cursing, non sequitur style of yore…kind of.
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The cult TV show Dark Shadows ran from 1966 until 1971.  I wasn’t even born when the odd, supernatural soap opera went off the air, so it wasn’t something I was familiar with until a few years ago when Tim Burton talked about doing a movie based on the show.  Frankly, the movie never really interested me since I had no connection whatsoever to the property, until I saw the first trailer.  It would have been easy for Burton to set the movie in the modern age, but, no, he had to go retro with a 1970s period piece.  And that alone interested me.  Not enough to see it in the theatre, mind you, but enough to spend $1 at one of the 3,000 Redbox machines within two blocks of my house.

Going into the movie blind, with only the vaguest notion of what the central premise was, I can’t say that my “intrigued” attitude grew to become affection.  I didn’t care about any of the characters, the comedy mostly fell flat for me, and the plot was less than inspiring.  Yet I felt compelled to finish the movie, just because it was such a bold experiment in movie-making, mostly due to the set and costume design.
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I first met Spider-Man in the cheesy live-action segments of The Electric Company.  My first run-in with Superman was during his time as a member of the Super Friends, along with his super friends Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman (I think we can all agree that the less said about Aquaman, the better).  I yelled, “Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!” thanks to the Lone Ranger and Zorro serials that were broadcast on PBS after the Saturday morning cartoons were over.  I can remember where I met all of these superheros, but I have no clue where or when I was first introduced to Tarzan.

I have a feeling there are a lot of us who just seem to instinctively know who Tarzan is.  Since Edgar Rice Burroughs’ story of the ape man was first published 100 years ago, the character has become something of a ubiquitous icon, akin to someone like Uncle Sam.  We may not know how or when we were formally introduced to Tarzan, but we know that anyone in a leopard skin cloth swinging from a vine could only be one person.
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Back in the late-80s and early-90s, back when the rough-and-ready, bald-headed, cigarette-smoking, missle-breasted Aussie badass known as Tank Girl was in her heyday, about as “indie” as I got was the Eastman & Laird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles .  For a certain group of people of a certain age, she was an icon.  I was not one of those people.  I wasn’t a rebellious sort who hated his father and fought against the establishment.  I didn’t have any odd holes in my face. I had a very conservative haircut. I had never even once raged against the machine.  Although my attitudes have changed somewhat over the years, I still never found my way to Tank Girl.  I just never made the effort.  Until I was offered the chance to review Tank Girl: Carioca from Titan Books, and then there she was, staring me down, daring me to take her on.
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The other Pixar Blu-ray out this week besides Brave is Volume 2 of Pixar’s Short Film Collection. The last volume came out five years ago and contained a lot of the studio’s early shorts. Since then, it’s become tradition to include shorts on their major Blu-ray releases, so I was wondering if this release would offer anything new or if it would be more shorts we already have.

Well, it’s a lot of stuff we already have and a few other things that make it worth it.

I’ve got a folder on my media center full of Pixar shorts that I’ve ripped, and so I was eager to see which shorts were on this volume that I didn’t already have from one of Pixar’s other Blu-rays. Unfortunately, the 12 main shorts are (mainly) available on other Pixar Blu-rays, but there are a few new additions. Combined with some awesome bonus features, this disc is worth it if you can find it at a good price.
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