Kevin Tinsley's last graphic novel, The Festering Season, was an ambitious project. It was a complex tale of urban violence and politics, but at times, it seemed like the writer had bitten off more than he could chew. The storytelling was a bit scattered and far too dense. Stonehaven is an equally ambitious project, and it boasts a similar urban setting and corresponding harshness. But there's a great focus at play in the plotting here, and it makes for more compelling storytelling and characters. The art is also a step up from The Festering Season. There's a love mix of realism and fantasy to be found in the line art. Phil Singer may not be a big name in the industry, but this project should definitely help him turn some heads at major comics publishing outlets.
The city of Stonehaven is considered by some to be a magical place, but for a small-town ranger from upstate, it's a cesspool of sin and violence. And somewhere in the middle of all the human filth is his teenage daughter. He hires a private eye -- a greedy one with plenty of sources in the magical underground of the city -- to help him track down his girl and the occult-obsessed bad boy with whom she's fallen in love. Meanwhile, a leader within Stonehaven's organized crime scene sets out to find and destroy the monster that's been terrorizing the businesspeople who pay her protection money so as to maintain her cash flow and a reputation on the streets.
Singer's artwork here is quite impressive. His work strikes me as a cross between the styles of Charles (Rose) Vess and Mark (Fables) Buckingham, though perhaps some of the more fantastic characters -- for which those artists are known -- lead me to look at his work that way. There's a softness to his style that serves the lovelier, more magical elements of the book nicely, and a grittier aspect that's in keeping with the crime-drama tone.
The only respect in which this book could really be improved, I think, is in the dialogue. Tinsley tends to overexplain what's going on, though perhaps that could be attributed to an original intent to go the typical episodic, floppy comic-book way; I don't know. The script is a little too matter-of-fact at times, though. Furthermore, the crime-drama genre that's a part of this book is just crying out for a harsher edge in the dialogue. A little bit of cursing would have reinforced the noir elements of the story.
Seeing supernatural characters in the middle of a New York-esque city put me in mind of Fables, bu in reality, this graphic novel is far more reminiscent in tone to Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco's Arrowsmith. Tinsley incorporates magic and monsters into the real world and explores what might arise as a result. Sin City meets Scooby Doo here, and it makes for fun reading.
