Alan C. Martin (born 4 August 1966) is a British

comics writer A script is a document describing the narrative and dialogue of a comic book in detail. It is the comic book equivalent of a television program teleplay or a film screenplay. In comics, a script may be preceded by a plot outline, and is almost al ...

best known as author of the comic strip ''

Tank Girl Tank Girl is a British comic created by Alan Martin (writer), Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett. It first appeared in print in 1988 in the British comics magazine ''Deadline (magazine), Deadline'', and then in the solo comic book series ''Tank Girl' ...

''.

Hewlett and Martin

Martin first met Tank Girl co-creator

Jamie Hewlett Jamie Christopher Hewlett (born 3 April 1968) is a British comic book artist and illustrator. He is the co-creator of the comic book ''Tank Girl'' with Alan Martin (writer), Alan Martin and the virtual band Gorillaz, alongside Blur (band), Blur ...

in 1986 when they were studying at the West Sussex College of Design in

Worthing Worthing ( ) is a seaside town and borough in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 113,094 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Br ...

. With fellow student Philip Bond they began collaborating on a comic/

fanzine A fanzine (blend word, blend of ''fan (person), fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleas ...

called ''Atomtan''. The ''Tank Girl'' series first appeared in the debut issue of '' Deadline'' ( 1988), a UK magazine intended as a forum for new

comic a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicat ...

talent, or as its publishers Brett Ewins and Tom Astor put it, "a forum for the wild, wacky and hitherto unpublishable," and it continued until the end of the magazine in 1995.

''Tank Girl'' film

In 1995, the comic was also adapted into a critically and financially unsuccessful film. The film featured Lori Petty as Tank Girl and Naomi Watts as Jet Girl. Martin and Hewlett spoke poorly of the experience, with Martin calling it "a bit of a sore point" for them. After ''Deadline'' folded, Martin and Hewlett attempted to create another strip together called ''The 16s'', which he described as a cross between ''Tank Girl'' and ''

Peanuts ''Peanuts'' (briefly subtitled ''featuring Good ol' Charlie Brown'') is a print syndication, syndicated daily strip, daily and Sunday strip, Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run ext ...

''. The strip was not published, and marked the end of their partnership.

Since 1995

After the film, Martin wandered around for a bit, staying at communes with

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

friends, looking for

stone circles A stone circle is a ring of megalithic standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially Stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being bu ...

and ancient sites before settling in

Berwick-upon-Tweed Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census recor ...

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

with his wife Lou and two children Wynne and Rufus Bodie (named after Lewis Collins' character in '' The Professionals''). Martin has played in various bands, written a Tank Girl novel (''Armadillo'') published in March 2008 by

Titan Books Titan Publishing Group is the publishing division of the British entertainment company Titan Entertainment, which was established as Titan Books in 1981. The books division has two main areas of publishing: film and television tie-ins and cine ...

, as well as various screenplays and scripts. He wrote the first new Tank Girl limited series in over ten years: ''Tank Girl: The Gifting'' with Australian artist Ashley Wood. Published by American publishers IDW, the first issue was released in June

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

We went to the comics graveyard and dug her up. She's smelling pretty bad, but we're gonna put her in a wheelbarrow and parade her around for all to see, anyway.

Since 2007, Martin has dedicated his time exclusively to the Tank Girl franchise, writing over a dozen graphic novels, and designing several art books. In 2014, Martin, along with original artist Hewlett, and old school friend Bond, launched ''21st century Tank Girl'' as a Kickstarter, which was funded in less than 48 hours, the ensuing comic series was the best selling Tank Girl series ever. This was followed by the mini-series ''Two Girls One Tank'' which also proved to be enormously successful. Since 2015, Martin has worked on Tank Girl projects exclusively with self-trained American artist Brett Parson.

Notes

References

* *

External links

Official Tank Girl websiteTumblr account

Interviews

Suicide Girls Interview
- With Alan Martin about the Tank Girl relaunch

- about the 2007 relaunch from IDW comics. {{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Alan Living people British comics writers 1966 births