Chichester man worked on artwork that turned into Hollywood movie

Bill Strohacker told us about what got him into art and how he was able to work on 'Tank Girl' artwork that turned into Hollywood movie in 1995.

He said: “I've always done art from a very early age. When I was less than 12 years old, I used to go down to a river near where I lived and dig out clay to make sculptures and things like that.

“From the background I’m from, that wasn't the done thing.

"I got into Worthing Art College at 16 and went from there.

"I went back later too as a more mature student and on my first day there I met Jamie Hewlett the Gorillaz creator, I sat next to him.

"My whole world changed at that moment because we became really good friends.

“We've stayed in contact ever since. But there was a whole group of us at that particular time. One of the stories, which is quite interesting is the the evolution of Tank Girl, which was created by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin.

"My involvement was that I helped out and quite a lot of the artworks with them, like colouring in stuff, drawing, etcetera.

"One of the breaks that I had was to put together the first graphic novel. It included a lot of their original comic strips.

"Something crazy happened because of the comic and we had a phone call.

"It was a woman saying she was a Hollywood film producer, and everyone was laughing and joking about it.

"After several phone calls, eventually, they took it seriously.

"It turned out that it was Hollywood film producer. Rachel Talalay!

"She had heard about Tank Girl from her daughter who had been reading the comic strips and decided that it would be a great idea for for a film.

"From then it was turned into a Hollywood film and starred many celebrities including Lori Petty.”