Can the Seeker’s magical trap contain the mysterious magical Cat that plagues her timeline? Find out in Inkblot #6 from Image Comics!
INKBLOT #6
Writer: Emma Kubert and Rusty Gladd
Artist: Emma Kubert and Rusty Gladd
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: February 3, 2021
Previously in Inkblot: The Seeker has figured out that the Cat travels through time and reality and she is determined to catch it. Then the story leaps back further in the past, to the Seeker’s family in a primordial jungle. They have stopped to camp and are there long enough for family squabbles to interrupt the Seeker at her writing. Then Xenthos realizes that young Inos has wandered off. Inos finds the Cat and tries to make friends with it. It summons a variety of magical creatures, which is entertaining until it summons something large, destructive, and that comes back to life after Xenthos kills it. This awakens Inos’ magic and he kills it – and brings the Cat home with him in a bag.
OBSESSED WITH THE CAT
Inkblot #6 opens back at the Seeker’s library. She is becoming obsessed with her desire to find and study the Cat to the point that she builds a time machine, a magical time machine designed to capture it and decrease its strength. And, in a very cute touch, the device to trap the cat is basically a cat-sized box incorporated into the time machine. The Seeker magically summons a fish to use as bait for the Cat and runs through the Library looking for it. The Cat simply finds its way to the box and sits in it.
The Seeker offers it the fish, grabs the Cat, and looking more maniacal than we have previous seen her, starts probing it with her wand, demanding that it give up its secrets. She is perhaps more frustrated than usual because it seems a lot like an ordinary cat. But sure enough, after this probing, the Seeker and the Cat wind up outside a cabin in Earth, the place where the Seeker first settled ages ago. It takes her only a moment to realize she is now in her own past.
The Cat slips out of her arms, runs into the cabin, and shenanigans ensue. At least briefly, right up until they hear something outside the cabin. The young Seeker realizes Xenthos is arriving, and the older Seeker suddenly remembers what day this must be and doesn’t want to live through it again. She had decided to stay here and not go with her family, and on this particular venture, Inos died. She wasn’t there to save him and she cannot save him now.
THE MAGIC OF HOME
We finally get to see more of the Seeker’s Library again in Inkblot #6, and it is a treat. It’s built amongst and of a grove of trees so it looks magical to begin with. It probably makes the shelving difficult to build, but there is something cool about a library that has trees growing inside it. The time machine is crammed in among the stacks and is eccentric, to say the least. It’s fueled by a magical fire that burns pale blue and is additionally lit by a number of drippy candles that burn a more normal yellow. It’s three levels high, and most of the fixtures are of undetermined purpose. But I really love the box. If there’s anything we know about cats, it’s that they find it hard to resist a good box.
I like seeing more of the Seeker again, as this is ostensibly her story. She is young and from a magical family. She wears comfortable pants and a loose blouse and prefers to go barefoot. In the beginning sequence, she looks like she’s been working long hours. Her hair has loose strands all over and there are leaves tangled up in it (probably from the interior trees). She looks manic and rather wild. When we land in her own past timeline, it is apparent that she does not visibly age. Still, her younger self has a much more cheerful, innocent look about her. She loves her library, and she is still optimistic about her job. Plainly she does not yet have a Cat in her life.
BOTTOM LINE: REFOCUSING THE PLOT
Inkblot #6 feels back on track with the Seeker and her story. It also feels more like the Cat has a role to play besides simply an extremely cute agent of chaos.
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Inkblot #6
Cats walk in mysterious ways, especially magical ones.
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By day, she’s a mild-mannered bureaucrat and Ms. Know-It-All. By night, she’s a dance teacher and RPG player (although admittedly not on the same nights). On the weekends, she may be found judging Magic, playing Guild Wars 2 (badly), or following other creative pursuits. Holy Lack of Copious Free Time, Batman! While she’s always wished she had teleportation as her superpower, she suspects that super-speed would be much more practical because then she’d have time to finish up those steampunk costumes she’s also working on.