About

The Tankman, by his full name Sergeant John Captain, is a character designed by Andrew J. Brozyna as Newgrounds' official mascot. Created in 2000 to inaugurate the creation of the Portal, he became one of the website's most beloved characters, inspiring many fan arts, and most importantly among them, the animated webseries TANKMEN by JohnnyUtah, from 2006 to 2008.

Origin

On April 6th, 2000, Newgrounds launched its Portal, in an effort to promote the sharing of videos and video games. To celebrate this change, the website adopted a new logo^[4] (see below), an artwork by Andrew J. Brozyna showing the Tankman – at the time an unnamed character – on the top of his tank; the Tankman is a black-and-white character with roughly square shapes, sporting a black fullbody armor and a white visor. This logo lasted from 2000 to 2018. Another kind of Tankman, with no visor, was added for the individual notation system, a note from 0 to 5 stars completed with reaction faces from the character depending on the note.

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TANKMEN Series

The most popular fan art associated to the Tankman is the animation series TANKMEN, created by Newgrounds animator JohnnyUtah, and characterized by crude humor. The first TANKMEN video, TANKMEN 1.5^[2], was posted on August 16th, 2006. This animation features a sniper, Private Skittles, being lectured by his father about "the birds and bees". It became very popular, being favorited over 10,600 times.

The second entry of this series, TANKMEN 2^[3], was uploaded on September 26th, 2007, and was favorited over 13,000 times.

The third and last official entry of the series, TANKMEN 0.5^[4], a sequel serving as an origin story for Skittles, as well as for Bill, the enemy soldier he shot in the first video, was uploaded on January 20th, 2008. It gained over 8,800 faves.

The series has also inspired other animators to make videos of their own in the same setting, with the characters designed by JohnnyUtah. One of the most popular, Tankmen Infinity^[5], was posted by Pikanjo on April 30th, 2008; it was favorited over 9,000 times.

On YouTube, an analysis video^[6] posted by 2 Left Thumbs on April 11th, 2021 gained over 25.000 likes in over 3 years.

Friday Night Funkin' Appearance

Just like many popular Newgrounds characters, the Tankman was included in the rythm video game Friday Night Funkin', as a part of the update "Week 7: Tankman", on April 18th, 2021^[7]. This inclusion inspired, starting in May 2021, a series of fan animation titled Tankman Ascends.

External References