%% tags: #Omnivore #type/tweets #type/book #type/roman #type/podcast #aoi/sciencefiction %% --- Bubble is a wildly improbable artifact === > by [Cory Doctorow](https://twitter.com/doctorow) > ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116713891602438))  ## Highlights - Bubble is a wildly improbable artifact - a graphic novel adaptation of a comedy/drama podcast that manages to turn podcasting into a visual medium. https://t.co/MMTtgNU0AG 1/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116713891602438)) - If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on https://t.co/iSBh8s9m7q, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://t.co/6hMmLOtyFy 2/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116713891602438)) - Written by @Jordan_Morris and @sarahlmorgan with art by @TangoCharlie and colors by @Snarlbear, this @01FirstSecond book manages to recapture the comedy, the snark, the trenchant commentary and the drama of the original @MaxFunHQ podcast series. https://t.co/z0dztHCh4T 3/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116716668178433)) - Bubble is a comedy/sf story about a distant outpost on a hostile planet where human colonists live under armored domes that keep out the hostile, overpowered critters that live on the surface. 4/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116718811549699)) - The bubble-dwellers have lives much like our own, dominated by social media, nostalgic sitcom binge-streaming and precarious gig work whose miseries are relieved by craft beer and trivia nights. 5/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116723597242368)) - The corporation that owns the bubbles and ultimately controls the lives of the colonists is mostly benign, except when it is arbitrary and vengeful, and it certainly is innovative. 6/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116727036547076)) - For example, when monsters start to make incursions into the bubble, management harnesses the power of market forces to fight them, launching Huntr, a gig-work app that connects freelance monster-hunters with residents who have monsters that need hunting. 7/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116729368608768)) - Unlike a boring state-based public safety apparatus, these freelance Huntrs are incentivized to keep it all really entertaining, stalking the interlopers with cool parkour moves, shouting dope catchphrases, and then posing for dead-monster selfies afterwards. 8/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116732753342466)) - But it turns out that gig work isn't actually that great, actually. And also, maybe living in a company town isn't all that great even if you can order a really good oak milk latte with an app with great UX . 9/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116734770872323)) - Maybe, in fact, it's all kind of...sinister? Plus, a lot of the best Huntrs are also bush-babies - born and raised outside dome among people who live with monsters in the wilds - and there's something a little weird about the way the company is recruiting and scoring them. 10/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116736800919557)) - The conspiracy that unspools - about mutant powers, a mystic crystal, and a deep secret about the founding of the colony - makes a great vehicle for a cast of fantastic, snarky, flawed characters and hilarious, dry and ironic dialog. 11/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116739053244416)) - It feels like a perfect synthesis of the weaponized irony and meta-humor of the best of 90s culture and Millennial tired-of-this-bullshit rage. The acting in the original audio drama caught this perfectly (especially @tavitulle's performance). 12/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116740928032770)) - The transition to visual storytelling replacing that acting with superb character design and delicious facial expressions from Cliff's art. In either medium, this is a knockout. eof/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1429116743025262594)) --- > links : > references :