Not at all what I expected - somehow I got the impression that it was by the same team which did Beautiful Darkness, a graphic novel that still unsettles me to this day when I find myself thinking about it. Literally the scene of the little triplet sneaking into the bird's nest to be fed has stuck with me for years and probably will continue to. Thus, I came into this reading with some trepidation, expecting beautiful and disturbing visuals.

And while that's what I got, the tone is completely different. Beautiful Darkness read as nihilistic, shocking, brutal, and uncompromising. Satania, by contrast, is about madness and determination. Disturbing things happen, yes, but Charlie doesn't care. She and the priest continue on regardless. They have no choice.

The visuals truly shine, with frequent full-page spreads and incredible vistas. Nothing is graphic or over the top. ( )

What a difficult book to summarize and review. Journey to the Center of the Earth meets Dougal Dixon meets Butler's Survivor meets Annihilation meets King Kong?

The art is lovely. The linework itself is very simple, reminiscent of Hergé, giving a sort of storybook quality. The colors are vivid and trippy, Alice in Wonderland-esque.

The pacing is breakneck, the plot is straightforward, but the journey to the end is winding and visceral and there is so much strangeness. I think I can comfortably place this in absurdist horror/new weird. ( )

Satania is definitely more 30 000 leagues under the sea than it is anything close to the occult, which was disappointing to me. However the book is phantasmagoric, twisted (and the twee feel of the characters makes this even moreso), and allows itself to weave its own logic and world. Ultimately its a refreshing foray into a hell that has more depth and imagination than a lot of graphic novels I've read as of late.

An unsuccessful but interesting attempt to mash up evolution and theology, spelunking and a tour of hell, Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Dante's Inferno. I gave this a go because I was fascinated by the creators' previous work, [b:Beautiful Darkness|17287069|Beautiful Darkness|Fabien Vehlmann|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1364599765s/17287069.jpg|6577216], one of the creepiest fairy tales I've ever read. But this phantasmagorical tour of an underworld that supposedly evolved over thousands of years and then inspired our vision of hell is just too odd, weird, perverse and pointless for me. ( )