Inkblot #1 // Review
Cats get conjured all the time. Open up a tin of food, and there they are. General human suspicions notwithstanding, not every cat that gets conjured can open magical portals to other worlds. That little talent is what makes one particular black cat the title character of a brand new comic out by Image this month. Artist/writer Emma Kubert and inker/writer Rusty Gladd present the first issue of Inkblot. The remarkably clever, little premise for a fantasy series pairs an ancient wizard who looks like a girl with an enigmatic, little creature in what promises to be a very, very fun series.
Somewhere there rests a living castle created by Xenthos, the Voidbreaker. The castle's roots rest in many realms. Xenthos is part of a large family of immortals. Among them is a woman who calls herself the Seeker. She looks like a young girl, but she's been filling-up the living castle library for thousands of years. One night she falls asleep at her desk. An inkwell is overturned, conjuring a black cat with huge green eyes that can open portals to other realms. Things are about to get very, very complicated for the Seeker.
Kubert and Gladd's premise is endlessly cool. Anyone who shares a roof with a cat knows that they can appear out of nowhere and disappear just as mysteriously. It only makes sense that they're able to open portals to strange dimensions. The magical world that Inkblot and the Seeker inhabit assembles itself quite nicely in a series of pages that introduce a basic grounding for fantasy adventure that could run quite swiftly in just about any direction before curling-up for a nap until the next issue is released. The background for the world of Inkblot is strikingly simple. There's a family of immortals who rest in many world. There's a cat wandering through it all and an immortal girl chasing after it. So much could come out of this premise.
Kubert's pencils and Gladd's inks come together in a way reminiscent of the pen and ink work of Larry Elmore. It's got a nice, earthy quality about it. And then there's the title cat: a non-anthropomorphized, little black cat with huge green eyes. His only dialogue is a simple "Mow." The cat is hypnotically cute, drawing all the gravity of every panel into itself with preternatural innocence. The cat is a visual mystery that is, nevertheless, completely feline and utterly mundane. Kubert and Gladd do an excellent job with the cat. If they can ramp-up the surreal fantasy of the worlds Inkblot and the Seeker roam through, this is going to be one hell of a unique fantasy serial.
At issue's end, Gladd refers to the technique that he and Kubert use as the Marvel Method. It isn't. (Not exactly.) Kubert comes up with the story and draws everything in pencil. Then Gladd inks it and writes the dialogue. This results in a more thoughtful collaboration than had been used in the original Marvel Method, which largely consisted of the artists doing most of the work on a book and handing beautiful fully-finished pages over to Stan Lee, who would then clutter them up with bad dialogue. There's more of a playful integration between Kubert and Gladd for Inkblot. There's so much potential for this collaboration to casually saunter wide-eyed through magical portals that lead from one issue to the next.
