Sunstone (18+ Comic)

[MahluaandMilk]

Okay everybody, get ready for like a book’s worth of me screaming about this comic (not a manga, sorry, but I have a dire need to vent about this beautiful absolute gift to this planet that we don’t deserve).

Sunstone

Year: 2011, I think
Publisher: Top Cow
Why did I read this?: I saw a couple of panels out of context on my roommate’s Twitter feed, and then one of my submissives recommended it to me. Yeah, I have two now. Life is weird.

Concept: Two chicks meet online over a mutual interest in BDSM. Shenanigans ensue. Stupid, sickeningly sweet shenanigans that made me cry like three times and shriek in the bathroom loud enough for my roommate to ask if I was okay. (What? I was reading it on my phone. Which should tell you how good it is, because I do not read comics online under normal circumstances, and especially not on my friggen phone.)
Execution: [Sorry, this segment, if I were speaking, would be a bunch of incoherent gay babbling and screaming that roughly translates to “So good. Yes.”]

Main Characters: Honestly the main cast reminds me a lot of my friend group for a lot of reasons. Not like the individual characters remind me of my friends, but the character group and the hooplah around them. It’s uncomfortably uncanny.
Lisa: Waitress/writer/submissive. The main narrator of the story. She develops very nicely over the comic’s progression. She’s such a loveable idiot sometimes, but she is still, in essence, quite a bit of an idiot. She thinks so too, lol.
Ally: My domme goals honestly. Programmer/Gamer. She meets Lisa online and has a plethora of friends in the BDSM scene that I’ll also scream about shortly. While she is a domme, she is also a very human character, and the comic really addresses that well. She has her insecurities and her moments of fault, but true to what being a domme is all about, she takes it in stride. Gods she’s precious in her own way.
Alan: Ally’s friend and…kind of ex but not really? The comic explains that way better. Also a dom. Makes a living building BDSM gear. At first I honestly thought I was going to hate him. I was very incorrect. He is a very good egg and his sarcastic banter speaks to me. He has his own past, which, to my knowledge, is actually explained in other comics. Expect me to be reviewing those as well, once I read them. Yes, I like him that much that I’d read some straight ish.
Anne: Introduced to the group by some side characters yet to be mentioned but is frankly more important than them so I’m putting her first. She’s not into the whole BDSM thing, but she’s a tattoo artist and becomes quite…acquainted with the scene through her friends. And then gets caught in the crossfire of some major drama. Poor Anne. What a gift.
Cassie and Tom: The bridge between so many characters, like our lovely Anne. They’re married and it’s disgustingly cute. They do the BDSM thing as well. Noticing a trend?

Plot: So Lisa and Ally meet online and keep flirting until Lisa, after two months, asks to meet in person. Sex and a dom/sub thing ensues, and through Ally, Lisa goes further down the BDSM scene rabbit hole. And of course because romcoms sell, they can’t just leave it at a FWB thing. Unfortunately for these poor girls, neither one of them knows how to express when they start falling in love and are slow enough to realize it’s happening. Since Lisa is narrating in hindsight, she makes it clear early on that yeah, it’s stupid. But damn if it ain’t cute. I’m not really sure where to put this in the review, so I’ll stick in here that the title is Ally’s safeword, and that does have quite a bit of significance, as some major drama centers on the history of it.

Art: Stjepan Sejic is a friggen god as far as I’m concerned. The colors are so warm, and the faces are so expressive. There’s a lot to be said for the lineart too. But I guess sometimes it does kinda remind me of Disney princess art and that’s kinda weird. Not like I can knock it too much, though. Damn, when it’s meant to be sexy, it is. I am a simple person with simple needs, and where can I buy some of Ally’s wardrobe g’damn.

Final Thoughts: This comic made me have to read it so immediately that I did not even develop the pretense of the mere idea of waiting to purchase it. I had to read it online, which is more than I’m doing for Prison School. Friggen PRISON SCHOOL. And I do wanna finish Prison School. I need to with some urgency, but not like what I developed for Sunstone. I was up on my phone late at night and, as I mentioned, I even took it to the bathroom at a scene that made me shriek loudly enough for my roommate to go “Everything okay in there?”
I cried three times at least over this comic, and there were a lot more times where I was just staring, jaw on the floor like a total perv, oogling the art. I laughed a lot too, and I felt so strongly that I binged like five volumes worth in just three days. Even with my oogling! I actually really want to voice parts of the comic myself, too (because I’m just original like that, y’all).
I think it’s pretty clear what my verdict is on this one.

9.5/10

Just because I wish it didn’t drop that nonsense about friends with benefits having to end up as a romance. Like really girls y’all should’a known from your dang flirting and webcam chats the two months before you met in person that y’all was in for it. I been bangin one of my roommates pretty much since we moved in back in August and I have done domme stuff for another friend of mine and there is no romantic inclination at either of them. Heck, the sub that introduced me to this? We’re platonic as well. And I’m pretty sure I’m not aromantic. But, hey, with that kind of propaganda getting thrown in my face in media all the time, I’m starting to question that again. Big but there, there’s also Ally’s history with Alan, so eh, not completely propogating that mistruth as a complete fact and it’s kind of touched on as a person by person difficulty curve.

Also I am totally stealing so many jokes from this series it isn't even funny.

And hey, losers, go watch Stjepan our lord on deviantArt.

[MahluaandMilk]

Smol update: my sub, the one who introduced me to the comic series, gifted me the five volume paperback set. i actually own this now. This precious, precious blessing to this mediocre world.
(LOUD INHALE)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Kakashi]

Sounds interesting ! 

[Kakashi]

So where is the story ? You do write good kinky stuff all the time. It's shame you only in to girls! haha   

[TinTin]

Haha. I was about to write the same. Your stories always have good sense in Ecchi and Kinkiness! But since you are only girls I think it fully influence your writings.

[MahluaandMilk]

I'm sure Sejic's comic here will be a huge influence on my writing, at least my dialogue, for the rest of forever, that's for sure. Remember that this is just a review, though. I don't think there's any room for fanfic of this one, because so far, it's all just...perfect.