Dreamy Liquid Curves And Dazzling Colors — Reviewing ‘Our Soot Stained Heart’ #2

Welcome to the table,

I don’t like Santa. I think it may be more accurate to say I don’t like this current iteration of the folk entity we collectively call Santa Claus. The idea of a mystical elf lord who watches us all when we are sleeping or awake makes me uncomfortable. When you add to the fact that he imposes his own morals on everyone and gives out gifts based on those morals, so that some get magnitudes while others get meager offerings makes me angry.

No child should feel their lack of presents is a moral failing. No child should feel they are constantly under scrutiny by some mystical force that will, at a whim, take away their good cheer and joy if they talk back to a teacher or forget to clean their room.

It’s too much pressure to put on the most vulnerable and impressionable of us. For those who argue that psychological manipulation is a means to an ends I ask you this. What happens to the children whose parents do not care enough to buy them gifts? Those who try all year to be the best they can be, only to find nothing under the tree or sports balls when they really wanted a cooking set, or dresses when they really wanted dinosaurs?

The idea of a gift-giving magic man is fine and good, but the way it is commercialized and treated in modern culture bothers me in a big way.

I tell you all of that to tell you that this very Santa-coded comic, Our Soot Stained Heart from Mad Cave, is somehow navigating my dislike for the “jolly old elf” in a masterful way that has me, frankly, stunned.

Written by Joni Hägg and Stipan Morian with art by Morian and colors by Ropemann, Our Soot Stained Heart #2 picks up shortly after the events of #1 with Peggy Stone awakening in a warm, cozy room, with her wounds mended,  and a small copper-looking robot asking her to follow it.

Peggy quickly finds out she is in a place called Felltown, the domain of the Baron she was seeking in the previous issue.

Everything in this book is Santa-coded, and yet at the same time, in a way that really messes with me, it’s not bothersome to me. This is a true testament to how well Hägg and Morian have crafted this story because I loathe Santa, but this brilliantly crafted art with its dreamy liquid curves and dazzling colors feels somehow inoffensive to my normal sensibilities.

Moreover, as this story plays out and the Baron, a clear Santa analog, complete with a stunning Misses Claus-like character named Fina, and gnome-like workers in his mystical workshop stronghold, ends up being a compelling and relatable, and the act of typing that is making me feel like I need to lie down.

I want to pause for a second and call out how brilliantly crafted Fina is as a character. There are a few entities in pop culture I would immediately pick up a statue, or a figure, or a print, or a sticker of, but Fina is on that very short list.

She’s built like some ancient antediluvian goddess with face paint that makes me feel like it would make traveling through the snow easier on the eyes. She has hair that is stylish but utilitarian, a cloak of feathers or fur, a red scarf that feels as much a functional piece as a gift from her partner, and a belt with workshop tools hanging from it.

Everything feels intentional in the design. That concept is where I hang my hat on this series. Everything feels thought out. Every window, every book, every table, every corner of this world feels considered, and for it to retain the fairytale folklore feeling and still manage to somehow pull that off is truly amazing.

The story is solid as well. I feel like I can see where it is taking us, as there is clearly a red suited reindeer-riding mechanic who is trying to transfer society from coal to something new, and his ideals and mythos have been twisted to create something awful and predatory.

This is awful, and a predatory new society that grinds down its people is being run by a strange, vile villain, who we will be learning more about in the next issue.

Until next time, this book feels like a dream. It’s like a half-remembered fantasy of a better time, a better place, a better world, trying to break through the hard ice of the current oppressive landscape. It feels like the sparks of revolution captured and rendered beautiful on the page. Our Soot Stained Heart is an experience that continues to deliver ethereal storytelling and spellbinding art in something I don’t fully understand yet constantly want more of.