2 out of 5

Grainne McEntee is a writer whose work is made or broken by their artist. While this may always be true in comics to an extent, you can often sense when one part of the pair (not to mention inkers, letterers, etc…) is carrying an issue, or holding it back, or when it’s a mismatch. Or: when there’s true synergy, either from kismet of a fortunate pairing, or after having worked together for an extended period.

But as was apparent with the preceding Apes ‘n’ Capes (to which Bubbles O’Seven is either a prequel, or a sequel, or a spiritual successor of some type, or just happens to also involve talking monkeys) Grainne has a particular writing tic that is, frankly, not very comics friendly, but can be shaped to be moreso by a strongly-minded artist. That tic is a tendency towards obfuscation. With Apes ‘n’ Capes, artist Matt Rooke – cocreator here, and artist on the first issue – was essentially following suit in that obfuscation, perhaps not helped along by still-developing abilities. But by the fourth issue, although McEntee remained as shielded as ever with structure, Rooke, at least in my interpretation, started to insert some better direction along the way, better inserting the reader into the story.

Which is to say: our first issue of Bubbles O’Seven, which posits an MI7 (historically the directorate of military intelligence…) that is running a clandestine operation to intellectually advance various animals, is really pretty good. McEntee jumps the narrative between scenes and past and present frequently, but Rooke manages it and maintains Grainne’s dry wit throughout as well, making for a fun lil’ Bond-with-animals riff that gives us a self-contained case, indications of a larger story, and a competent dose of random just-for-yuks stuff.

From here on out, though, the series is incredibly hit and miss, dependent – as mentioned – on the artists. And the reason I feel somewhat confident making that claim is that McEntee’s style of writing remains fairly consistent: elements that are plot details are shifted to tiny nods in the art itself, and / or narrated with such fleetingness that you can only really sense the story based on its basis around spy tropes, mixed with recaps at the start of subsequent issues… which essentially provide background that’s not explicit in the pages.

Granted, it’s all very possible that I’m a dumb reader, and that this is better interpreted as “dense” storytelling. But I’d maintain that if you’re going to see subtleties into the visuals, or kind of between panels, you really need strong visualists totally in sync with the project to bring that to life. And changing artists on every book makes that especially hard to do.

The high level structure of Bubbles is that the MI7 program essentially failed, with only Agent Bubbles still loyal to his masters, and tasked with tracking down rogue operatives – aka various talking animals. These animals are often involved in Bond villain take-over-the-world shticks, and we’ll bounce between some MI7 / Bubbles origin flashbacks while the present day “action” takes place in stutter steps, with Grainne’s favorite trick to essentially skip completely over the main events and just give us snippets from before and after. This is actually fine, as it plays into the book’s sense of humor, but again: you need an artist to drive it home, and unfortunately, only a couple in these first five issues are up to the task. The others aren’t bad, it’s just requiring more than doing script-to-page translations, and also requires a lot of slapstick timing, which is another next tier ask for a lot of artists. Additionally, setting aside value judgments on denseness, I would say that McEntee struggles with juggling multiple plotlines in general, with the better issues somewhat more linear for longer stretches; this is adjacent to the obfuscation tic, as it’s like the writer is allergic to just depicting any scenario strictly as it happens, and is more content to find some indirect way of showing/telling it to us. Multiply this across A- and B- and flashback plots, and the obfuscation feels forced.

When Bubbles O’Seven works, it’s a pretty inspired read. Grainne’s ultra compression is a challenge, but stronger artists help it along, and the blend of spoof and world-building is unique, and compelling. But more often than not in these few issues, it doesn’t work, with the purposeful complexity of the scripts unnecessary for the types of stories being told, and/or requiring more consistency in the art to stick the landings, rather unfortunately turning select issues into frustrating fights to piece together the narrative, which is probably not the intention.