Gun Honey

Product Information

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.

With Gun Honey I think you need to be open to pulp fiction/noir storytelling to truly appreciate how great and fun this first issue is. The story occupies a murky territory between espionage, thriller and crime: Tan is actively supplying weapons for nefarious purposes (whether or not she has any scruples about what she does is one of the central questions here - one which for me wasn't, quite, answered in this volume). 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.

Joanna Tan is an interesting character with an intriguing backstory and enough mystery to fill a few adventures, which I saw there will be more. An expert at espionage as well as breaking into facilities undetected, she is largely hired to sneak weapons into uncrackable locations. We learn during questioning that Tan is an expert gun dealer and runner who’s nearly impossible to imprison or implicate in any crimes. That said, the writing, whilst far from revolutionary, was nowhere near as amateurish as I was expecting. When you’re the best in the world with a very specific set of skills, it’s logical that even governments would want you on their side.

In relation to the latter, I would warn that there are some very explicit scenes here - both of killings, and also of Tan, as she picks her way through an exploitative, male-dominated world (or at least, it was till she took a stand).

She's amoral and yet has a code of ethics that she might have a hard time explaining, but the reader can see. 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.