Sunstone (comic)

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Sonnenstein (English original title: Sunstone ) is a webcomic by the Croatian comic artist Stjepan Šejić from 2011, which was published as soft and hardcover by the Top Cow publishing house from 2014 . It describes the lesbian love relationship between two women from the BDSM subculture.

action

Allison (Ally) Carter and Lisa Williams are two women in their mid-twenties who have an untreated passion for BDSM , especially fetish clothing and bondage . While the nerdy programmer Ally prefers the dominant part, the waitress and part-time erotic writer Lisa longs for the submissive role as bottom or sub. Both have failed relationships with men who have always misunderstood their fantasies. The two women get to know each other via an online portal and arrange to meet for a lesbian bondage session. Both Domme Ally and Sub Lisa overcome their initial self-consciousness, successfully live out their fantasies and begin a passionate relationship that initially only serves to satisfy pleasure.

In the course of the plot, Ally's ex-boyfriend Alan, who advises her on BDSM as an experienced dom and professional fetish furniture maker, and the bisexual tattoo artist Anne are introduced. She gets to know Lisa through her erotic stories and becomes the new best friend of the two women. Ally organizes ever more sophisticated role-playing games in which she takes Lisa hard with her full consent. The happy sub uses her experiences as inspiration for online Bondagestories ( key novels with parodies of Ally, Anne and) which are very popular in social media.

To their anxiety, Ally and Lisa notice that they are falling in love, but they don't have the courage to admit it. This leads to a momentous misunderstanding: At Halloween in a BDSM club, Ally flirts with Anne and Lisa at the same time, which offends both friends. Lisa breaks up with her, but speaks to Anne. Anne notes that Lisa always leaves the initiative to her partners, which is okay in role play, but questionable in real life - and admits that with her consent she would have been open to a threesome . Lisa takes her criticism to heart and begins posting a lengthy clef novel online. Here Lisa's character praises the domme arts of Ally's character, confesses her love, combined with the self-criticism that a sub also has the duty to actively participate in a relationship. Ally understands this allusion, makes up with Lisa, returns her declaration of love and marries her. Anne and Alan also fall in love and become sub and dom, respectively.

The comics often emphasize the importance of safe, sensible, and consensual bondage. The comic title "Sonnenstein" is Allys Safeword . Ally spends a lot of money and care to acquire suitable furniture, clothing and utensils as well as to learn how to use them expertly. Alan is haunted by the memory of a failed bondage session that caused almost permanent damage to his then sub. Further topics are "everyday", e.g. Sometimes involuntarily weird experiences with vinyl and leather clothing, relevant toys and role play (e.g. when the cathedral has to fall out of place for a few seconds to simply blow the nose of the immobile sub), and the role of honesty for a deep relationship. Ally and Lisa fall out because they don't want to admit their love at first. In a subplot, Lisa's older brother Mike tries to fix his troubled marriage with an open relationship . This fails all the more until he and his wife admit their real needs and cheerfully begin partner therapy. Lisa, who (apparently) has a completely different relationship, has the highest respect for this.

background

Šejić, who worked as a draftsman in the series Witchblade a . a. had made a name, initially had no deeper ambitions when he published the first episodes about a BDSM lesbian couple for free on DeviantArt . After receiving encouraging feedback, he built the episodes into a full story that eventually became Sunstone . The response was so positive that the comic - although it can be downloaded completely free of charge - appeared in softcover and later as hardcover, and gave the Top Cow publisher an unexpected hit. In Germany, Sonnenstein has been sold through Panini since 2015 .

According to his own statements, Šejić was able to use his “own, often surprisingly funny” experiences with his wife Linda for the story. For the fetish clothes he had "as a superhero draftsman ... enough visual references". In his opinion, bondage is a physical role play like LARP or wrestling , and describes bondage players in a positive sense as "sexual nerds ". From an author's point of view, Šejić was completely surprised that the comic "without a villain and with an anticipated happy ending" could captivate so many readers.

reception

Publishers Weekly wrote on Volume 1 that Šejić's sense of humor and the humanity of his characters are refreshing and bring the required ease into a potentially difficult subject. The main weakness of the main characters, however, is their stereotypical perfection, which could call into question the idea of ​​taking a bold look at unconventional people, unconventional sexuality and unconventional love. Peter Ostereid from comic.de called Sonnenstein "very erotic ... with finesse, with class ... a tingling reading pleasure ... [and] a true and romantic love story". Christian Straub from comicgate also pointed out that Sonnenstein was “not a porn comic ... but a love story”, praised the “original idea of ​​portraying BDSMers as sex nerds ”, but made compromises on the “rushed” artwork with unfinished backgrounds. Christian Neubert from the title culture magazine wrote about volumes 1 and 2 that the author allowed the story to appear “as a kind of pleasantly romantic alternative to (...) works like the ones Crepax created”. He described the comic as "rather warm-hearted and accessible," but also criticized the occasional superficiality in the background.

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ a b SONNENSTEIN 1 - A captivating love , comic.de
  2. ↑ The Most Unlikely Success Story - The Sunstone Hardcover , bleedingcool.com
  3. ↑ Interview with Sunstone Creator Stjepan Sejic , Comic Crusaders
  4. ↑ Sejic's "Sunstone" Brings Romantic Comedy to the World of BDSM , Comic Book Resources
  5. ^ Q&A with Stjepan Sejic , www.outrightgeekery.com
  6. ↑ Review of Volume 1 at www.publishersweekly.com
  7. ↑ Sonnenstein 1 , comicgate.de
  8. ^ Christian Neubert: Daily soap in lacquer and leather. In: Cover culture magazine. October 19, 2016. Retrieved July 11, 2018 .