Inkblot #6 // Review
The Seeker inadvertently runs into herself while searching for the nature of a particular mysterious black cat she seems to have created in the sixth issue of Emma Kubert and Rusty Glaad’s Inkblot. The strangely restless word building and intermittent jauntiness of the plot settles-down into a very clever rhythm in an issue that explores a bit more about both the Seeker and her cat. The dialogue might feel a bit stiff in places. Still, Inkblot the cat retains his characteristic appeal, wide-eyed as ever and far too evidently stunned at the world around him to notice the drama unfolding.
The Seeker is searching for something that she’d accidentally made in the process of seeking. Now she wants to understand it. Before she can understand it, though, she’s going to have to catch it. And assuming she does so, it might just take her somewhere she might not want to be. The fact that it can open portals to other places is one thing. The fact that it can travel through time? THAT is another matter altogether. She might just find herself in the company...of herself while desperately trying to understand a cat that doesn’t seem to understand anything at all.
There’s a hell of a lot of set-up this issue. Glaad and Kubert really focus on The Seeker’s totally obsessive need to understand everything this issue...it’s a feverishly manic sort of energy that she’s fallen into this issue as she sets her undivided attention on understanding one little cat that had been accidentally animated out of a few drops of ink that fell to the floor while she was sleeping in her study. There’s a major turning point in the relationship between Seeker and cat this issue that finally manages a pay-off between the two characters that feels quite satisfying.
Kubert has done something really interesting and subtle with the art this issue. The Seeker’s manic energy occasionally shoots across the page with a wide-eyed wonder that matches the calmly tweaked-out energy of her cat. Little Inkblot’s eyes are distinctly non-feline, but the size of those oddly circular cat pupils shows a remarkable range of emotion this issue as the cat finally starts making some sort of emotional connection with the girl who has been chasing after it for something like half a year now. There are some casually fantastic things in the corners of the frame, but the connection between cat and girl, the sixth issue, is one of the most compelling visuals to come along all series.
Kubert and Gladd’s slow development of the central plot has finally reached a major point of crystallization. One gets the impression that the series thus far might have been a bit more satisfying if it had taken more opportunities to bring together cat and magical Seeker. However, the strangely curious nature of little Inkblot’s exploration HAS charmingly matched the overall temperament of a cat in ways that most series might have otherwise overlooked.
