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Bubblegun (collected editions) #1
BubbleGun Volume 1: Heist Jinks
They like the tech, but live for the high stakes! Sisters Molli and Devyn, along with teammates Roman and Kyo-and a stockpile of cutting edge, cyber-punk technology, form a confident team of mercenary thieves able to take on the most formidable jobs around. Yet, when one cyber heist turns out to be more than they bargained for, as a mysterious package and its contents threaten to unravel the group to its core, the menacing worlds of corrupt industry and deadly espionage is unleashed upon them!
136 pages, Paperback
First published June 18, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 13, 2022
I wasn't a super fan of this story. A group of misfits just trying to make their way in the galaxy by working odd jobs for money. At the core there are two sisters, one is the leader and the other I'm assuming is a novice who can't handle a real weapon so she gets a gun that shoots bubblegum - yeah I don't know why and it's never explained. The story felt really forced and like it was trying to hard to be this cyber-punk battle but fell flat with the jokes. There's little to no background given on anyone and the authors don't spend any time developing the characters so there was no way for me to connect with anyone. It just missed the mark for me.
August 24, 2018
This was a fun sf graphic novel but there definitely was several instances where the female characters were half naked for 000 reason. The romance was cute if a bit ill timed.
October 10, 2016
I received this book in the July 2016 Comic Bento box. The version included in this box came with a variant cover on the trade, which is pretty cool. It seems like Aspen does this regularly for Comic Bento. The books in the box featured robots, but this book really only has cyborgs, which are closely related I guess.
Anyway, Heist Jinks is about a group of thieves, sort of like Ocean's Eleven or the Italian Job, with high tech gadgets. They steal a mysterious package for a client, beating out a rival team along the way. With added interest in the package, they ask for more money, but things quickly unravel for them.
This is a pretty fast paced book with plenty of action. The story isn't wholly original, but the package itself and why each of the different factions want it is well thought out. Sometimes the characters fall into certain stereotypes, which isn't bad in and of itself. It just might not be appealing to some readers.
The illustrations didn't thrill me. There are some cool sequences, but there is also some objectification of women. Two things about the book excited me though. The first is the colorist. The colors used for this book are amazing. They capture the tone and setting perfectly. It can be a bit over the top, but that is exactly what this book needed. The second thing I liked came from the letterer. Instead of using the traditional expletive symbols, there were images to convey what the speaker meant without using the curse words. I don't know if this is something he just decided to do or if it's something Aspen does in general, but I thought it was really clever.
I do recommend this book to anyone that wants an action packed, cyberpunk story and doesn't mind that it might be shallow.
Anyway, Heist Jinks is about a group of thieves, sort of like Ocean's Eleven or the Italian Job, with high tech gadgets. They steal a mysterious package for a client, beating out a rival team along the way. With added interest in the package, they ask for more money, but things quickly unravel for them.
This is a pretty fast paced book with plenty of action. The story isn't wholly original, but the package itself and why each of the different factions want it is well thought out. Sometimes the characters fall into certain stereotypes, which isn't bad in and of itself. It just might not be appealing to some readers.
The illustrations didn't thrill me. There are some cool sequences, but there is also some objectification of women. Two things about the book excited me though. The first is the colorist. The colors used for this book are amazing. They capture the tone and setting perfectly. It can be a bit over the top, but that is exactly what this book needed. The second thing I liked came from the letterer. Instead of using the traditional expletive symbols, there were images to convey what the speaker meant without using the curse words. I don't know if this is something he just decided to do or if it's something Aspen does in general, but I thought it was really clever.
I do recommend this book to anyone that wants an action packed, cyberpunk story and doesn't mind that it might be shallow.
August 25, 2016
Of the very few Aspen trades I've read, this is the best so far. This one has an engaging main character, a cool, fairly well-realized cyberpunk sci-fi world, and lots of fun action. I also enjoyed the art, which is a somewhat cartoony blend of anime/manga and exaggerated 1990s stylings. Of course, there is the typical gallery of pin-up style alternate covers, but the cheesecake is kept to a minimum in the story itself.
May 9, 2020
I originally learned about this title when going through the bargain bin of comic books (before the Pandemic of 2020). Cover art of the issues looked cool and the title "Bubblegun" just sounded lighthearted and fun. Never got to read those issues, but when I ran across this full volume at Half Price Books, I had to pick it up. And... there's a reason it was so easily available on the clearance rack.
I suppose an intentionally lighthearted story will have easy concepts to follow: a rival, a betrayal, a mystery, someone to protect, unexpected partnerships, a battle, and a reconstituted ensemble heading into the next story. But if it's going to be that simple, you'd hope something else to make this book more compelling like the art. Unfortunately, the art felt inconsistent to me and was distracting often because it was actually a bit difficult to tell the different characters apart. It's like all the women were drawn almost exactly the same but with not-quite-different enough faces and the bruiser men in the story looked just as similar--big bodies with caricature small heads. Only by costume color and dialog could I really figure out who I was following at times.
In the end, like many other reviewers, I give this a 2.5, but this time I'm rounding down. It's not a bad book, but if you take too long to read it, you can start to question your priorities in how you spend your time.
I suppose an intentionally lighthearted story will have easy concepts to follow: a rival, a betrayal, a mystery, someone to protect, unexpected partnerships, a battle, and a reconstituted ensemble heading into the next story. But if it's going to be that simple, you'd hope something else to make this book more compelling like the art. Unfortunately, the art felt inconsistent to me and was distracting often because it was actually a bit difficult to tell the different characters apart. It's like all the women were drawn almost exactly the same but with not-quite-different enough faces and the bruiser men in the story looked just as similar--big bodies with caricature small heads. Only by costume color and dialog could I really figure out who I was following at times.
In the end, like many other reviewers, I give this a 2.5, but this time I'm rounding down. It's not a bad book, but if you take too long to read it, you can start to question your priorities in how you spend your time.
December 10, 2017
Closer to 2.5 stars. The art was fun and there was some highly entertaining sequences. On the surface this cyberpunk heist story seems right up my alley. But it rushes the coupling of the protagonist and her best friend turned boy friend. It also had an opportunity to draw out the story a bit more and fell short of that. Hoping some better pacing in the second run.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 28, 2018
Tries to hard to be an "Fast paced action comedy cyberpunk drama"
Yes it has elements of all of these genres and would be a amazing read if it would have combined them correctly.
Sadly it didn't.
Yes it has elements of all of these genres and would be a amazing read if it would have combined them correctly.
Sadly it didn't.
July 25, 2022
Really exciting cyberpunk sci-fi action story with cool characters and great art. Super fun!
September 20, 2016
On the surface, Bubblegun seems right up my alley. It's a cyberpunk story with a bit of comedy to it, stylized (but not ugly) art, and a good amount of action. But what its neon-glow extravaganza of gunfire and robots doesn't have is depth.
The story follows a group of thieves for hire, as they try to rescue a person of interest from an evil megacorporation--kinda like a brighter, more bubbly (sorry) version of Shadowrun. It's straightforward, which isn't inherently a bad thing, but it's almost as if the creative team saw the plot as so straightforward, they didn't need to spend time with things like character backgrounds or development. And this is a problem. Case in point, when a character turns traitor in issue #3, it's...actually kinda hard to care, because we know virtually nothing about him. And this feeling carries through most of the story; characters can be boiled down to one-line summaries: Leader of a rival team of thieves. Aged veteran with robot arms. Evil mastermind. Scrawny love interest. Macguffin. Etc. and so on.
That said, I didn't actively dislike Bubblegun, and I'm not upset that it was included in the robot-themed Comic Bento a few months back, but it didn't do much to distinguish itself, either. It's just like a forgettable summer action flick, in comic form; I doubt I'll even remember much about it, a month from now.
The story follows a group of thieves for hire, as they try to rescue a person of interest from an evil megacorporation--kinda like a brighter, more bubbly (sorry) version of Shadowrun. It's straightforward, which isn't inherently a bad thing, but it's almost as if the creative team saw the plot as so straightforward, they didn't need to spend time with things like character backgrounds or development. And this is a problem. Case in point, when a character turns traitor in issue #3, it's...actually kinda hard to care, because we know virtually nothing about him. And this feeling carries through most of the story; characters can be boiled down to one-line summaries: Leader of a rival team of thieves. Aged veteran with robot arms. Evil mastermind. Scrawny love interest. Macguffin. Etc. and so on.
That said, I didn't actively dislike Bubblegun, and I'm not upset that it was included in the robot-themed Comic Bento a few months back, but it didn't do much to distinguish itself, either. It's just like a forgettable summer action flick, in comic form; I doubt I'll even remember much about it, a month from now.
December 28, 2023
Very basic story that borrows liberally from other works, including yet another “super kid in a cryo pod” bit from Firefly.
There’s not much character development and they all have the standard motivations: greed, revenge, rescue, etc. The angle of recruiting the rival gang is interesting at first, but there’s no real payoff.
The art is mostly fine, but in some places it’s difficult to follow the story, and a lot of the characters look alike other than slight variations in hairstyle. Kinda looks like the video game Overwatch borrowed some design clues from here.
There’s not much character development and they all have the standard motivations: greed, revenge, rescue, etc. The angle of recruiting the rival gang is interesting at first, but there’s no real payoff.
The art is mostly fine, but in some places it’s difficult to follow the story, and a lot of the characters look alike other than slight variations in hairstyle. Kinda looks like the video game Overwatch borrowed some design clues from here.
August 4, 2016
Rating is probably closer to two and a half stars.
At some point, I wonder if Comic Bento is going to send me an Aspen Comic I like. This one was the best so far in that the story made sense and there was something of a real plot to it, with artwork that didn't look like a bunch of stiff, willowy women doing dramatic poses, but the book didn't interest me much as all anyway.
At some point, I wonder if Comic Bento is going to send me an Aspen Comic I like. This one was the best so far in that the story made sense and there was something of a real plot to it, with artwork that didn't look like a bunch of stiff, willowy women doing dramatic poses, but the book didn't interest me much as all anyway.
September 29, 2016
A Sci-Fi techno-action story about a pair of sisters, who along with their friends, hire out to conduct cyber heists. The younger sister, Molli, is the newbie who is only allowed to carry her training gun which only shoots big pink globs of a bubble gum substance. The art is kind of a hybrid anime. Not quite dark enough for me, but fun just the same. Recommended.
October 4, 2016
Fast-paced and action oriented story that falls flat for not beinging anything new to the table. Art is dynamic but sometimes uneven. Only for fans of cyberpunk to which this story fell off of their radar.
September 30, 2016
It has decent art but a generic story. There is not much of a plot. Mostly the protagonist whines about her feelings.
October 9, 2016
A quick, light read, full of very pretty colors, but fairly generic in terms of plotting. Didn't we already do most of this on Firefly?
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews