I'm getting a little tired of Tank Girl, too, and I think I started out as one of its happiest supporters. I'm realizing that the only time I ever laugh at it is when Rufus draws something hilarious, like flying through the double-decker bus. Script and story-wise, it's incredibly weak. The one about building an amusement park to destroy all her enemies was pretty dire.
As for its long, unhappy, rave-culture pedigree, I found a couple of Tanky-free Deadlines (1992 issues) some months ago and those really are some terrible comics in them. You had some pretty wonderful contributors - Philip Bond, Glyn Dillon, Nick Abadzis, etc - but their comics were, start to finish, horrible, amateurish crap. Seriously, the best thing in either issue, by leagues, was a Manic Street Preachers article by the late, great Steven Wells.
By a bizarre coincidence, I also picked up an issue of the American-sized A1 in some other store's cheap bins (no Bojeffries, darn) and read it around the same time, and was amazed to see that "Cheeky Wee Budgie Boy" ran in BOTH Deadline and A1. And was terrible.
Maybe if all that, including whatever the heck that strip was that Hewlett did after Tank Girl, was any indication of what the young, up-and-coming comic artists wanted to draw in 1992-93, it's no small wonder 2000 AD hit a slump around that time. How were McKenzie and Burton meant to encourage new talent when there was so little of it in the water?
Anyway, I'm all for resting Tank Girl and bringing back the small press pages for a few months. Or if we try the reprint route, The Titan books have passed the point we left off Charley's War, so I think that's out, as are most of the other Battle strips - Johnny Red's due next year and I understand they're planning Eazy, Rat Pack AND Darkie. Maybe reprint something from Action or Misty or Toxic?
