Tank Girl is the product of early 90s counterculture, rooted in the art of punk fanzines as well as anarchic and psychedelic imagery. The comics take place in a hyper-stylized post-apocalyptic Australia and follows the eponymous character of Tank Girl and her boyfriend Booga, who is a mutant kangaroo, as they outrun a multimillion dollar bounty. The narrative of these comics is sparse and often meandering to make room for the stylised trappings and psychedelic imagery.
Tank Girl's design relies heavily on intricate linework with high contrasting shadows and a lot of variation between thick and thin lines as well as washed out colours and combination of different media such as cut-outs and collage. Her aesthetic draws from a lot of the popular feminist/punk figures at the time, with her shaved head, dyed hair and disregard for traditional 'womanly values' which was reflective of the time, which was seeing an influx of sexually liberated female popular figures. At the peak of her popularity Tank Girl became a sort of feminist icon, her character indulging in the sorts of sex, drugs and anti social behaviour that was relatively new to comics and much of pop culture at the time.
Tank Girls design spans a variety of different outfits, each with their own theme, each anything from generic. A lot of the comic is influenced by early 90s British pop culture, hence the tinted glasses, leather jackets, punk getup etc, but Hewlett gives them his own apocalyptic spin, often incorporating found objects and military hardware. Her design, while obviously heavily stylised, resembles that of a real person with fairly realistic proportions and while the character is often sexualised, she is in control of her own sexuality and empowered by the illustrators restraint in depicting her through the male gaze.
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