Canadian graphic novel weaves together past and present

ASHLEIGH MATTERN
Editor-in-Chief

The graphic novel Stone starts with an emergency. A suicide letter is positioned over frames of a mother rushing through traffic, leaving a car door ajar with the cell phone open on the seat.

But in addition to the story of a young man named Edwin who attempted suicide, we hear the story of one of Edwin’s ancestors, Stone, as told by Edwin’s mother as she watches over his recovery.

The comic flits back and forth between a modern-day hospital and a Cree community at the beginning of the 19th century. Such a large gap in time could be jarring, but the frames at the shifts mimic each other, creating symmetry and a cohesive story.

Stone looks up to his older brother and wants to become a brave like him but Bear leaves him behind in a battle against a Blackfoot tribe.

While the transitions between times are smooth, sometimes the scene changes within times are jarring. Expecting the conversation between Stone and Bear to continue, instead the next page shows Bear leaving Stone behind.

The lines of the black-and-white comic are crisp and clean, and some of the frames are downright beautiful. It would have been an even more beautiful comic had it been coloured.

The characters are well-defined and I found I cared about what happened to them. Having dealt with depression in my own life, I could relate to Edwin’s struggle, and my heart went out to his mother, who obviously cares deeply for her son. My only other disappointment with the comic is that we never learn his mother’s name, but perhaps that will come with another installation in the series.

While the story starts with Edwin’s struggle with his mental illness, the part of the story that takes place in the early 19th century is far more vibrant and compelling. We see Stone on a vision quest, playing a hoop game and on a buffalo hunt. I get the impression the storytelling is also more vibrant for Edwin than his own life.

Stone is the first book in the series called 7 Generations written by David Robertson and illustrated by Scott Henderson. Four more comics in the series are planned: Scars, which takes place during the smallpox epidemic of 1870; Ends / Begins, which follows Edwin’s father’s experiences in residential school; and The Pact, where Edwin and his father “reconcile their past and begin a new journey.”

Assuming the next comics in the series are as engaging as this one, this is definitely a series I’d like to follow.