"Sunstone" is erotic, mysterious and above all, surprisingly romantic tale of two girls in lust and love with one another

The two girls at the center of Sunstone Volume 1 are an adventurous, perhaps even a bit lustful, duet. At first glance, they are as different as can be.  There is Lisa Williams, a red headed aspiring (and ongoing) writer, who fantasizes about being with a dominatrix woman.  Online she meets Ally Carter, a sophisticated looking girl (perhaps due to her glasses, a look which clearly elevates her IQ status) whose past time involves having her friend Alan install various strange looking toys and gadgets into her home, which includes a bed with a unique headboard in her room.  When Lisa and Ally finally meet face to face, they realize just how much in common they have with one another, and a romance between the two begins to blossom.

Creator Stjepan Šejić, who serves as writer and illustrator on this S&M bondage themed comic, is an artist reminiscent of Terry Moore.  Both men are multi-talented, able to write the story and the dialogue, and in addition possess the artistic skills to visually create the same characters they have imagined.  That is no small feat, and Sunstone surely evokes Moore's own Strangers in Paradise serial, another auteur-created comic where we also witness two heroines in the forefront of the story, who also may have feelings for each other that expand beyond the friendly kind.  Just how much Moore's legendary comic has inspired Sejić is hard to say, but some influence is apparent, at least after one's initial reading of Sunstone.

This surely is an erotic comic, full of gloriously colored scenes and vignettes of Lisa and Ally laying half-dressed - or completely naked - and experimenting with each other for the first time, but by no means is it pornographic.  Šejić wisely shows the naked bodies of his two heroines, but never quite crosses the line into the tasteless zone.  However, knowing full well that lust alone can not drive this tale, nor can it sustain the readers' interest longer than one issue, he hints at a possible romance between the two, which most likely will extend into further issue.  I, for one, can't wait to see what fate has in store for Lisa and Ally, and whether they will find a way to co-exist together, naked or fully dressed (hopefully naked).
B+