“Stone Heart” #1

SERIES PREMIERE EMMA KUBERT, the artist behind Frank Miller Presents’ Frank Miller’s Pandora and Image Comics’ INKBLOT and RADIANT PINK, introduces her whimsically twisted tale STONEHEART, a new ongoing action/adventure fantasy series!Bubbly and headstrong Shayde Whisper has been inexplicably exiled from her magical guild and relocated, left only with vague memories and romanticized hope. But when she hears a sinister voice in her head that awakens a power beyond her comprehension, she’ll traverse her past and present to unravel her prestigious place within the mystical land of Athea!

If you need a refresher on Emma Kubert’s young career, here you go. Emma Kubert is the granddaughter of the legendary Joe Kubert, and the daughter of hall of fame artist Andy Kubert. Her uncle, Adam Kubert, also a comics great. The family founded and operates the Kubert School, a prestigious place to learn the craft of drawing comics. Emma is not only a member of that family, but a graduate of that school. Many comic book artists are self taught. And of those who did pursue a higher education in arts, vanishingly few studied comic art specifically. And those studies lead to interesting comics, unlike just about anything else on the stands.

This academic artistic approach was on display in Emma Kubert’s debut comic, “Inkblot,” which she co-created with Rusty Gladd (what a name!). Excuse me, Rusty Gladd IV (even better!). Inkblot was about a witch and her dimension-hopping lovable-asshole cat (the titular Inkblot). Most of the comic is drawn in a pretty traditional style with iconic figures, scratchy pencils, and dynamic poses, the kind of art you might see in a superhero comic. But the cat was drawn like a kid’s cartoon character, a cousin maybe, of Krazy Kat. And the cat followed cartoon logic in its shenanigans. “What if a regular person had a pet that was a Looney Tune,” is a good pitch.

So “Stone Heart” has Kubert going full fantasy. We’re talking about opening maps and characters with names like Shayde Whisper. If you told me this was lifted from Kubert’s D&D campaign, I would be unsurprised. Our hero Shayde is an exile from a reclusive magical community. With her past a tightly held secret, she’s become a likeable and talented blacksmith. Things can’t stay quiet of course, and the first issue sees Shayde eviscerate a terrifying creature and then badly cover up the attack. She also adopted a magical puppy, lest you think she’s hateful and violent.

Rather than mixing two styles as she did in “Inkblot,” Kubert mixes ‘em all! I particularly love the opening, drawn in black and white but lettered in vivid color. The lines have a tactile pencil texture to them, and the shading is all done in soft watercolors. The prologue is a multimedia experience.
Then you hit the present day and everything turns to color like it’s The Wizard of Oz. There’s still the scritchy linework, but the colors are shaded with digital gradients. There’s also a good use of digital focus, particularly when Shayde is at her forge and the heat of the flames make the air in the panels shimmer.

If there’s a big hook in “Stone Heart,” it doesn’t really land in the first issue. I don’t exactly know what Shayde’s epic quest will entail, or even if she has one. Maybe she will continue to fight for her mundane life and resist the call to battle darkness. All I know is, I like her as a protagonist and I am happy to continue to follow her series, whether it become High Fantasy or if it stays slice of life. Quality character work can do a lot to keep momentum going in an ongoing series, and really that intrigue is just a vessel to deliver this fantastic, unique art style. This comic was clearly created by someone who studied the craft of comic making, and I’m willing to get it’s just going to get better and better.

Final Verdict: 9.0 – Emma Kubert’s solo debut is a quiet first issue, but the real draw is the expertly crafted artwork