Created by the award-winning Hard Case Crime co-founder Charles Ardai and drawn by breakout artist Ang Hor Kheng, GUN HONEY is a fast, sexy thrill ride for lovers of classic pulp and fearsome revenge thrillers. Ardai will realize he needs to improve the quality of his stories and put some meat into his world building. That said, Kheng stays away from gratuitous cheesecake poses or silly body posture simply for aesthetics. While it's unlikely to win over those that aren't already in love with the genre, fans of Hard Case Crime's previous publications or similar series like Jon Sable: Freelance or Criminal will want to give this a try. With weapons expert Joanna Tan, the legendary "Gun Honey," off the grid, recuperating from her last job, a vengeful rival takes her place - and frames Joanna for murder.

Considering this is pulp fiction, it delivered exactly what I was expecting - story worthy of good old action movies.If Tarantino wrote a comic, trying to encapsulate everything that’s flagrantly awesome about the crime grindhouse subgenre, it would turn out looking like Gun Honey. This does require loads of suspension of disbelief, but once you’re set and ready to believe in anything, things move quickly and smoothly. However, it's a perfect excuse for some well-drawn, almost cinematic, action scenes with gun fights. Notwithstanding the blatant no-top-on-the-busty-femme-fatale rule that was clearly achieved from the beginning until the very end, never really explaining why she liked to showcase her frontal assets so much too, the revenge thriller isn’t unfortunately as voluptuous as the main character, quickly rushing to a resolution that felt unwarranted. If you're going to switch your brain off and read something (as well as look at some pretty tasty artwork), then this is certainly the place I'd like to go to do just that.

Thrilling, fast-paced, and light on words, the core revenge narrative is mostly weak yet addictively fast-paced as it allows its protagonist to utilize her sexual energy quite ostentatiously on readers. For anyone of a certain age, the comparisons with Peter O’Donnell’s iconic pair, Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin, are inevitable, although Joanna Tan completely lacks Modesty’s unshakable moral code, but other than that, the trope of the dark, athletic beauty and the rugged blond sidekick is much the same, only with Joanna hailing from Singapore rather than a war-torn region at the east end of the Mediterranean. How, pray tell, does the US government arrest, convict, and sentence someone to life in prison when they cannot identify who he is? Gun Honey is burning hot schlock in the best possible way, with an ultra cool heroine in the driver’s seat who kicks all the ass and takes all the names.

All ready under observation from a secretive government group, Gun Honey is given an option, find this mysterious prisoner who is killing his way around the state, or take his place in prison, or the morgue. I don’t think I’ve ever had to use the term “male gaze” before in a book/comic review, but c’mon mannnn. It's now up to Joanna to prove her innocence, and find the woman responsible for framing her for murder! That artwork by Ang Hor Khengreally is pretty good; it fits the story perfectly and tells it's own story very competently.

is an unexceptional pulp noir thriller introducing the world to Joanna Tan and her valuable and pronounced assets. I gambled on this because I saw a few friends had gave high marks and they had an awesome variant cover. It's a story of a sexy femme fatale, who likes to wear tight fitting, revealing clothing, almost as much as she likes flying around the world and getting up to all sorts of violent shenanigans. The thing is, I think it depends on what your tastes are and your willingness to somewhat suspend belief.It doesn't need to be explained everytime, there's a charm to that mystery but I'd love to see a scene where we get to see the full walkthrough and her thought process. Joanna Tan, the woman from the beach and reputationally known as Gun Honey, arrives home a few days later to find a government agent waiting for her. Gun Honey is the alias of the strong and sassy female protagonist, an arm's dealer who can import guns wherever they are needed, even in the most heavily guarded places. The characters are drawn larger than life in this graphic novel, especially Joanna who is, let's just say, buxom. As a Stephen King fan, I had read Joyland and Colorado Kid, both of which are Hard Case crime novels, and as a lifelong comic book fan, I was beyond excited to discover that Hard Case had begun publishing comics as well.