Inkblot #13 // Review
The Seeker continues to seek. What she’s seeking is a black cat with big green eyes that seems to be hopping all over the realms. She’s forged an enchanted collar to try to study it a bit more, but she’s running into problems that have nothing to do with the cat as it spends a bit more time with another family in Inkblot #13. Writer/artist Emma Kubert and co-writer Rusty Gladd continue to expand the strange, little world of a little black cat capable of sauntering between worlds. The cat is cute. Her inadvertent creator gets a bit more depth and background in another satisfying issue.
The Seeker has been contacted by a ghost. He wants her to give him a body. She’s a bit preoccupied trying to harness the chaos that is a cat incapable of understanding just how powerful it is. The cat in question is chasing its own kind of darkness...and its beginning to show an active interest in pursuing strange monsters from a sinister-looking realm as it finds itself in the company of a couple of girls, their brother, and their grandmother. Typically one wouldn’t want a black cat leaping into a portal from which claws and tentacles seem to be escaping, but its instincts seem somewhat valorous. This cat might yet prove itself a hero.
Gladd and Kubert layer in a hell of a lot of story about the world of Inkblot this issue. There’s a lot of dialogue at the opening of the issue. All of the backstory IS illuminating a lot of what is going on in the foreground. Still, the central mystery of the black cat with the big green eyes is far more interesting than anything placed in the firmament of the realms. The story beyond the cat feels like it could be centered a bit more closely on the Seeker and her cat, but the expanding background DOES add satisfying depth.
The cat is cute. Its tiny black fuzziness and its big green eyes are endearing. Cuteness of the cat aside, there IS a bit of repetition in action. The little thing looks around perpetually startled at a very startling world. Weird things appear. There is danger. Disaster is ultimately averted. Kubert is managing some subtle character development in the totally nonverbal character of the cat as its interactions with the strange world around it gets a bit more active and a bit more engaged. In a little over a year since it made its first appearance, the cat has come a long way, thanks to the clever and thoughtful rendering of Emma Kubert.
Inkblot continues to take its time in revealing more and more about the series of the realms in which it exists. It’s been a strange journey. Kubert and Gladd seem to be having a bit of difficulty balancing out the world beyond the cat and the mystery of the cat itself. Still, the story continues to be entertaining as the series strolls into its second year.
