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u/galaxy_to_explore, u/Bawstahn123, u/Pixeltaube, u/cutoutscout, u/voidicguardian, u/KallieLikesCartoons, and u/MansDeSpons, here's the write-up you guys wanted!

But Sundberg's sins as described in A Meandering Line are nothing as serious as the things her fictional animals do! The most she did was think mean thoughts about people.

I think it’s important to note that in certain denominations the part of the Bible where you’re told that having thoughts about something is just as bad as doing it is something that they believe. Like if you think about your neighbor‘s wife lust fully that’s the same as committing adultery. If you think about somebody and hate them that’s the same as killing them. So that might explain a little bit the mass of anxiety that she has about the mean thoughts.

For example

Matthew 5:28 - But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

I grew up with this and it was a massive cause of anxiety in my life. You’re basically taught that you can’t even trust your own mind.

A couple of other bits for context of some kind:

A Red-Tail's Dream, already a gorgeously illustrated comic, was created almost entirely because Minna wanted to hone her skills as an artist and writer before tackling Stand Still, Stay Silent. SSSS had a ton of momentum and hype going into it because it was supposed to be the magnum opus of an artist whose practice work was far, far more impressive than most webcomics.

Minna's video game attempts were, to my recollection, almost entirely self-taught and also meant to be an extremely large project, combining her already high-effort artwork with a full-featured RPG without any significant prior experience or collaborators.

These bits, in addition to the parts about her fearing for her soul/believing herself to be a terrible person for negative thoughts, her putting out more work than you would reasonably expect from a team of artists on her own, and her complete lack of any socialization outside of her art don't just paint the picture of somebody with anxiety, although that's also present: they paint the picture of somebody obsessive; the level of focus and dedication required to make Red-Tail's Dream and SSSS was, unfortunately, maladaptive and is also why she was able to swing so drastically towards hardcore Christian beliefs and the need to evangelize them.

This also, bizarrely, makes Journey Upstream a very interesting and singular work, because her views and quality obsession are both relatively unique in the realm of "explicitly Christian media", which is normally much more low-quality, interchangeable material for vibes-based evangelical Christianity; a still-beautifully-illustrated comic that's trying to be like, Calvanist Narnia is genuinely an interesting work even if the messages are not always great and the way it exists is very, very sad.

Additionally, I wanted to note that there's a religious form of OCD known as scrupulosity, which specifically occurs in the form of anxiety about failing at faith, going to hell, or things being ultimately meaningless. It causes people of faith to feel constantly anxious that they're not doing enough, and sometimes makes people who weren't even religious fall into anxieties about hell, to the point that they feel as if they have to convert or their life will no longer be worth living. It isn't as well known as the other forms of OCD, but it's actually very likely that a lot of religious figures who were fixated on sin and their own guilt might've had a form of this, in the past.

Basically, it sounds exactly like what happened to this artist during her anxieties, and all I can hope for is that she finds some peace away from anxiety. Because even though she might've decided that her religion is the cure, OCD anxiety doesn't just disappear like that when you find "a solution"; it'll constantly keep coming back and telling the sufferer that they didn't do enough.

When I got to the end of the title I went "ahh, the SSSS author."

I remember reading the first chapter of SSSS and being completely blown away. I think I read about half of arc 1, I don't really remember why I never finished. I read the social credit comic when it came out too and remember thinking "huh...." The direction of her career isn't for me, but I do agree, I do hope she's found a little happiness, even as an athiest myself.

I somehow missed the word Isaac in your title and thought that she watched too much of the PBS cartoon Arthur lmao

Its interesting to read about her conversion, it seems like instead of falling into a religion that nullified or invalidated her anxieties, she found one that almost feeds into and reinforces them. Its like the comfort of being 'correct' outweighed the comfort of being better than she thought

Oh man, I read SSSS during the pandemic and only finished Act 1 after the creator had made her change.

It was super heart breaking to see her go from excited and cheerful in the comments of Act 1 to actively loathing herself and all the art she had made prior to conversion. She had lots of confidence and life prior. I don't have the heart to see if she regained that.

Like as an artist I can imagine finding your past work kind of cringe but she took it very far. I think the only reason she didn't delete Redtail and SSSS is that she's still getting revenue from them, which is helping her with her current projects.

A lot of the comments she made about herself after her conversion do not speak well of her mental health. This write up helped me understand a bit why. Just very frustrating that the religion she found seems to be making her mental health worse by the foundations of its beliefs.

SSSS is honestly a gorgeous piece of work. The world in Arc 1 felt so alive and rich. The backgrounds were so detailed. I loved each of the arc 1 characters so much. But I'm glad I stopped where I did.

Anyway, thanks for the write up! It gave me a lot of feelings.

Okay first up minor pet peevee of mine but Scandinavia only refers to Denmark, Norway and Sweden, more correct word would be Nordic countries.
But now that's out of the way I liked this write up! I've been following Sundberg's art since ~2004 (yeah, I was a kid then) and her conversion came as surprise. The afterword of Lovely People in particular felt like a gut punch when I first read it! I'm hoping that at some point her views soften and that she wouldn't have as much anxiety, or that at the very least she wouldn't treat ARTD and SSSS like old shame.

Oh damn. I can't count the amount of times I tried getting into SSSS only to put it off for later, so it's wild stumbling over it here in the wild. Thanks for the write-up, OP!

As someone with anxiety who has had some pretty intense bouts in the last year (many of them like her triggered by books/videos/podcasts that get a bit too doomer), it makes me sad that this is the outlet she found. Going out more is indeed the solution, but in my case a supportive irl friend group and a positive hobby community was all I needed. I really hope she's not too deep in the sauce and can find a circle that doesn't consistently feed her fears, she's a very talented person who deserves better.

She had to convert to Calvinism, she had no choice

Damn, i had SSSS on my reading list for a while, sad.

I was a big fan of her comics. it was such a sad day when she converted.

I actually have a pdf of all the comic pages she didn't turn into books and am waiting to print them out myself and finish the collection.

A Redtail's Dream is one of my favourite webcomics but I never got into SSSS, so stopped keeping track of Sundberg after ARtD finished. I'm still sad that I decided not to back the physical copy of ARtD (I was a poor uni student back then...).

Really interesting post! It's a shame that she can't "wholeheartedly recommend" her old work anymore.

Wtf, I watch Isaac Arthur all the time, WHAT is going on here 😭

Edit: I should note, OPs explanation of his content is more-or-less correct. Its just a channel that explores sci-fi concepts, it doesn't even focus much on aliens moreso just futurism, it really is that harmless 😭😭

I haven't really read this webcomic, but I have been exposed to it. I have a huge interest in linguistics and have been to quite a few language-related websites and discussions. There have been not a few times that a certain page (Stand Still. Stay Silent - webcomic, page 196) is shared around to show the difference between Indo-European and Uralic tongues, often without people knowing where the image comes from.

Man, this write-up makes me sad because I watched all of this happen in real time, and like, while I hope she's found some refuge from her anxiety and obsessive tendencies when it comes to mental health crises and religion it's always kind of a gamble, y'know? Also, like, the conspiracy theories aren't great and watching someone slide down their country's version of the fundie pipeline in real time was just generally kind of depressing.

Ah, SSSS... I was there for the downfall, such a shame...

To add some extra context: Originally Minna planned 5 arcs (one for each Nordic country) but then burn out hard and basically crashed through the end of arc 2 leaving a lot of open plot threads (and via her streams it was pretty clear that something wasn't right, she seemed to have forgotten large important chunks she'd been planning for a while, when asked about Emil's mother (who was foreshadowed to have died in some kind of fire) she seemed confused and decided on the spot that she died by slipping on ice

Her adult baptism was also not a regular indoor one, but involved jumping into an icy finnish lake in the spring (she described it as exhilerating but it does seem unusually risky)

Also for as much as arc 2 was rushed, (though she was still making like 3 full colour pages a week WHILE WORKING ON LOVELY PEOPLE)
there was like a good 9 months straight of the plot being stuck dead while we followed three mutant bears around, it was excrutiating

And this is more minor, but arc 2 was meant to be all about the Finnish cousins, Lalli, Onni and Tuuri (particularly Lalli)
Since arc 1, Emil x Lalli was a popular ship because over that arc the two overcame their language barrier and other communication issues to become friends
But the two Barely interacted even in strictly platonic capacities for most of arc 2 and people felt it was strange
(Like people weren't expecting them to kiss/actually be boyfriends or anything but some people did wonder if their sudden lack of interaction was caused by Minna being aware of the ship and her new religion perhaps not being the most accepting of m/m
TBH that is just speculation, it could be plain old burnout induced bad writing, but this is the same religious group that convinced her video games were evil so...)

I honestly didn't know people still did Calvinism. I took an Religious Studies class a few years ago and Calvinism leaves me completely baffled to this day.

I understand why religion gives people security and comfort and I think it can be a good way to deal with certain anxieties even though I'm not religious at all. But Calvinism is the opposite of everything good about Christianity. I guess it could be comforting to know your after life is out of control? Maybe? Personally I think I'd be anxious thinking about potentially being doomed to hell, but what do I know.

Stand Still Stay Silent Act 1 is genuinely one of my favorite pieces of media that I've ever read, it's sad that Act 2 ran into all of the struggles it did before its unceremonious end.

Great work on this write up! As a long time follower of SSSS, it was certainly interesting and a shame she felt this much anxiety about her life. I remember thinking that people were perhaps too upset with her for 'giving up' on SSSS, especially considering we all read for free and I firmly believe no creator is beholden to work on a project they don't love anymore. 

But it is sad. I do hope she's doing better. I remember rereading SSSS during the pandemic, and a big reason why is because of how it started. That comic had some really eerily similar things to how people were feeling at the time, so it was cathartic for me.

I check on her current religious comic about every few months. She is probably an artist I will always sort of follow, just due to a curiosity I have about her and her artwork. I have yet to read A Redtail's Dream but I absolutely will now. 

This one was crazy because as soon as I read the title I was like "Is this SSSS?" lmao.

Weirdly reminiscent of my feelings on TS Eliot's poetry. I think he wrote utterly incredible, awe-inspiring poetry before he converted and ...okay... poetry after. I feel like it happens, when anxious/obsessive creative types find religion their anxiety may improve but their work suffers. Lol.

I recall commenting about this in one of the scuffles a while back, so thank you very much.

It is so upsetting to me that it turned out this way.

I remember being amazed with the story and artistic quality of SSSS. with it updating four days a week, it had me looking forward to each new page. then as I do with most comics I read, I put it on the back burner so I could save a buffer for later, which I could then read all at once.

And then the pandemic happened and arc 2 came. the story while beautifully drawn was less coherent and just worse. I don't know, I wish Sundberg well, but it feels like she lost her dream and religion took over. or maybe this is just who she was and now she's realized it's really disappointing.

Thank you again for the write up.

Small correction regarding Isaac Arthur: that’s not a pen name. His real name really is Isaac Arthur (Isaac Albert Arthur, to be exact).

As a Scottish person knowing someone would willingly become a Calvinist makes me laugh. 

Anyway so long as she is happy then I am happy for them. It is what it is. 

I haven't seen this artists work in YEARS. which is a shame because as a young teen I really admired their art and wanted to draw like then. What a strange way to get updated. Honestly im quite sad to read this, honestly sounds like exasperated mental illness of some sort. I hope that doesn't come across as offensive, I just mean there seems to be a lot of unhealthy anxiety. Doesnt excuse nasty behavior or racism but I do hope they get mental health help.

As a former Calvinist who struggled with scrupulosity my heart really hurts for this author; I was lucky enough to find Christians who actually acknowledged my issues as mental health struggles and encouraged me to get actual help instead of just praying obsessively all the time, and I can only hope she finds the same kind of care someday

I noticed that the SSSS comic is affiliated with Hiveworks, and I desperately need someone to go over that drama that's been going on for the last several years.

I started SSSS when act one was still updating, and after the golden age of webcomics dropped off I stopped. I went back to finish it during the pandemic and spent too much time in the SSSS fan forum trying to figure out wtf was going on lol.

I still feel like a lifestyle change and probably therapy would work better than converting to Christianity, but that's just me as a godless heathen. 🤷🏾

converted to Christianity (specifically Calvinism) in 2020.

Of all the Christian sects to believe in... Calvinism is the one she went with?

s there was no immediate response, Sundberg decided that she was a completely amoral person as she was "a very spiteful and petty person." Sundberg gave into her "morally corrupt feelings", which meant that she let herself hate other artists that were doing better than her and stopped being empathetic to other people's suffering.

Okay now it makes sense why she went with Calvinism.

She is/was the atheist stereotype that fundamentalist Christians have. "If you dont believe in Jesus what's stopping you from being evil?"

"Nothing! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" *twirls mustache evilly.*

oh damn, was not expecting to see a post on this person. i followed her on instagram during the SSSS years, stopped being active on there but checked my account a few years later and was extremely confused to see i was following a religious christian artist. i remember realizing who she was, reading the entirety of A Meandering Line, and just feeling really sad... i didn't get positive vibes from that comic, just intense and persistent fear and shame, and uncanny similarities to my own experience with OCD, although at the time i wasn't diagnosed

i remember the scene where she talked about her driving anxiety. iirc she was in a cycle of having "sinful thoughts" and then immediately praying for forgiveness (another familiar cycle to ppl with OCD), and she was terrified of dying in a sudden accident right after having a sinful thought, before she got a chance to mentally repent, thus damning her to hell. i can't pretend to know her mental state but i wouldn't be surprised if she was experiencing scrupulosity or at least symptoms of it... and i wouldn't wish that constant torture on anyone. i hope she's doing better now, or if not now, will do better in the future.

on that note of webcomic artists showcasing the progression of their mental states through their art, and shifting dramatically to political and religious extremism, Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida is another one to examine if no one has yet (quick edit, i see there definitely have been posts already, i shouldve expected as much!)

I always wondered what happened with SSSS. I remember really loving the chunk of Act 1 I'd gotten to before falling off, and then I heard the ending just crashed and burned and never really knew why.

I'm sad still SSSS fell off, I remember how incredible the world building was, the scope, and the passion she had for the world during the first arc that I was so excited for future expeditions into the old world and possibility of them bumping into other societies that had survived the fall.

I was surprised by the conversation but I'm obviously just wishing her the best in life and hope she's got a good support network around her to help with that anxiety, as someone who has heapfuls of existential dread from the world I can get it to a degree.

I discovered SSSS about two years ago, thanks to an excellent reddit post from a fan who had detailed their view on how people around the Great Lakes were surviving said apocalypse. I then proceeded to binge Act 1 hard.

As I progressed through Act 2 I kept wondering why everything felt so rushed and why it came to such an abrupt end with so little development compared to the first. When I got to the last handful of pages, the descriptions she wrote made it abundantly clear what had happened, and I was profoundly disappointed.

Considering the timeframe, I always figured that the isolation of COVID had hit her harder than most and that her adoption of Calvinism was the result. I had no idea about everything else. Excellent write-up, but I'm still sad that SSSS ended how it did.

I loved SSSS. Reading A Meandering Line, I couldn't believe someone could write and illustrate an entire comic about their unresolved anxiety latching onto Christianity and evidently not realize that's what their conversion was.

Good write up, i took a break from (or forgot about) SSSS for a while and was then surprised to go back and see the dip in quality and to find out about her conversion. I was obsessed with the first act though.

Do you agree with the accusations of racism? I'm not familiar with her online personality beyond SSSS, so pinch of salt, but it seems unfair to me for people to cry racism over an arguably bad joke and a cast of characters not involving poc when there aren't really that many characters to begin with besides the main cast. (again, been a long time since i read it so i might be mistaken on that last one).

I’m pretty familiar with this one! As someone who actually took a stab at webcomic creating, SSSS is one of my biggest artistic inspirations. I actually own a hard copy and it blows my mind she did all her pages with only 4 digital layers.

I will say that writing comics alone (especially at the rate Minna was going) is a tough and isolating process, especially leading into the pandemic on top of it. I did find the social credit comic a bit worrying. But at the same time, while it led to SSSS coming to a more abrupt end than fans (and myself) would’ve liked, I’m hopeful that her faith and community now are a good thing for her even if it ultimately means her art changes to be more moralistic. People change, and I definitely understand the reality of working on something that just doesn’t mesh with you anymore.

There are plenty of kind churches and cruel churches out there. But I’ve found it’s usually the people, not the denomination/theology that determine that. I just hope the one she’s at has good people and that she’s doing alright. At least from her perspective it sounds like she is!

The only worrying part is her current comics being soft persecution fetish.

Honestly, it sounds like she needs medication rather than religion.

I'm still sad about this, she made something truly unique and put a lot of work into it, but her current stuff, at least as far as I cared to read, was pretty but bland and uninspired, at least to my eyes.

I also can't help but feel that someone must have taken advantage of her being in a bad place to convert her, although you can see hints of her future conversion with the church part of SSSS's Arc 1 so maybe it started a lot earlier than most of us think.

I always wondered what exactly happened to her, it was such an interesting comic despite some things that felt off about it, mostly on my personal preferences. I did end up getting hard copies, which makes her weird conversion even more annoying since it felt like I was funding her nutty views if I wanted to finish my collection.

I never did; some combination of disinterest and the fact I had the entire first act that was a complete story on it's own before the quality drop.

I tend to read webcomics in big chunks so I can read a lot at once, so I have not been up to date with ssss for a long time but I have the books and I really loved it when I was reading it. It was so magical, so snowy and quiet and a really lovely comic. I'm sad to hear of her conversion especially because it seems to have tainted how she views her own works. It seems a real unbalanced swing from one extreme to the next. I'm not going to compare it to other webcomic authors who redpill because that's not a fair conversion, but it is interesting and not surprising how much a big change in belief impacts their work like that. I hope she can find happiness, no matter what that looks like

Man, I stumbled across Lovely People on tumblr back in 2021. At one point a character references something Jesus said, and the artist includes imagery of him and his disciples. Except everyone in this comic are rabbits. Meaning Jesus is a rabbit. Which I thought/still think is so funny

All the stories of online artists converting and suddenly forgetting how to make good art make it seem like christianity is some sort of cognitohazard and christ is a lovecraftian god who'll break your mind by witnessing him

Good writeup anyway, now I'm curious to check out the comics since they're getting high praise in these comments

I remember SSSS. I loved the worldbuilding and horror. If anyone has any webcomic recommendations that have a similar magic to act 1, I’d love to hear them

Thanks for the writeup! Just a quick note: if you're looking to describe a principle or belief, the word you want is "tenet", not "tenant".

There are no non-white characters in A Redtail's Dream and SSSS, not even in the background. The stories take place in the Nordic countries, a place with a majority white population, but the indigenous Sámi people do not appear in the comic at all (Wikipedia). Additionally, the post-apocalyptic premise of the story means that it's likely that most people of color are dead, but it's implied that some may have survived in cold, mountainous regions in other parts of the world. They never are depicted in the comic proper, though.

I understand why people would ask things like this of professional works backed by companies who can just hire the right people to write good representation, but is it really a reasonable expectation of an independent artist doing on their own? A sensitivity writer can only help so much with regards to writing about a culture you might not know much about.

I was an avid fan during the Redtail days and SSSS was my favorite webcomic for a long time. It was heartbreaking to watch her fall into such a harsh, unforgiving religion

Dang, having been a reader of SSSS as a kid and watcher of Issac in the past that’s sad to see. The isolation must have been quite bad since generally Issac is generally very optimistic in terms of how the technology could improve the human condition but the discussion of entropy and how societies work around it in it absolutely seems like it would be a major trigger for someone having fears about determinism

I remember her. Stopped reading ssss around the time of her conversion and the strangeness that followed. A redtail's dream was my first introduction into Finnish folklore. Hope she's happy, though I always wonder how long the ebullience following a conversion can last... 

For the comments about "Why would someone convert to Calvinism?" Many religious beliefs and systems are aimed at making sense of a disorderly, chaotic world, and Calvinism is basically the extreme version of that. I'm not sure about in Finland, but in North America some of the denominations with progressive views on social issues are Calvinist (Presbyterians, United Church of Christ). There are also various different degrees of Calvinist thought, some being stricter on the absolute predestination thing, some looser. 

Calvinism also has a belief in perseverance of the Saints, meaning those God selected at the beginning of time will never lose his grace. No matter what you do, you're going to heaven. That can alleviate someone's religious anxiety in a way.

The problem with Calvinism, for me (from a religious perspective) is that the Bible says in multiple places that God wants everyone to be saved. 

Minna Sundberg's story is such a sad one. Her art was absolutely beautiful, and she did an amazing job conveying the mythological concepts that she was working with. I fell off SSSS before any of this really happened, but it always hurts a bit to know that I can't ever really go back and finish it, because it will never be what it could have been.

What is it with (web) comic artists and spiralling in weird directions?

First, good writeup and analysis. I think you did a good job of summarising a situation that is very much tied to an individual's personal beliefs and events that may not have been public knowledge.

Second, and I know that I am going to be downvote to hell over this, is that I feel that there was a lot of fan entitlement regarding SSSS. I saw a lot of commentary, including in this community, about how readers felt they were "owed" by the author and that she should have continued with her original plans for it regardless. This led to no small degree of demonising her for both her abandoning the story and her apparent conversion.

Ultimately I feel this is one of those cases where a creator's personal issues informed their creative decisions. And while we can speculate, we ultimately don't know, and likely never will, the full story

There are no non-white characters in A Redtail's Dream and SSSS, not even in the background. The stories take place in the Nordic countries, a place with a majority white population, but the indigenous Sámi people do not appear in the comic at all (Wikipedia).

If Sami are indigenous, so are Finns.

Reformed Baptist

Well here I go a-searching, because I cannot imagine what this denomination must be like.

As a technicality the title is misleading. The Baptist denomination is its own thing, Calvinist would generally imply Presbyterian/Reformed Christianity to people. Baptism is kind of derived from Calvinism, but it's kind of its own offshoot.

A difference is also that Calvinism is essentially a mainstream form of protestantism, which through the Prussian Union makes up a part of the German protestant church and also exists in other places as the Continental Reformed tradition and in the Anglosphere in the Church of Scotland and Presbyterian churches elsewhere.

Baptism is a much less mainstream branch of Christianity, at least in Europe, which is nevertheless quite big in the US, and overlaps quite a lot with American evangelicalsim. In Europe where it's not very big and usually brought over by American missionaries, baptism is very much a sect for crazies.

Finland does not have a significant Calvinist presence at all, I don't think we even have a Reformed Church. A Calvinist I know went to Sweden for his confirmation. Our main church is the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, and there's of course the Orthodox and Catholic churches around as well, and then there's the "free churches" which are essentially genwrally very low church Protestant churches that are not the historic state church.

Baptism is relatively widespread in Ostrobothnia, and it's not all a new phenomenon by any means, but it's definitely a minority sect for people dissatisfied with "mainstream Christianity" and overlaps with political conservatism and belief conspiracy theories.

Whoah, I remember reading and liking a lot SSSS part 1 and then stopping mid part 2 (webcomings are harder to follow once you've binged and hit the update "wall"

Thanks for the long explanation, I hadn't thought about the artist in a while, it's an interesting story. I don't have much opinion about the whole christian stuff, but your analysis reminds me that no art of creation is "free". Even just dabbling into it I find it kinda isolating, so when it's someone main activity it can reach a whole other level

Thank you for this! I only found out about this whole thing a month ago.

I dropped SSSS in act 2 and forgot about it but I was soon hoping to buy A Red-Tail's Dream if she ever re-printed it. I hope she finds peace. 

SSSS Act 1 is probably one of my fav webcomics ever but I stopped keeping up with her recent output since the ending of Act 2 was so disappointing… whatever she’s doing now I hope she finds peace.

Oh wow, someone did a writeup of this. I always like discussing SSSS in the context of 'the writer went through a crisis and converted to hardcore Christianity'.

That being said in the webcomic world getting any kind of genuine conclusion to a story is a rare occurrence, so I am thankful they decided to finish the comic instead of dropping it entirely.

Commenting before reading: oh my God, I know this story!
Wow!

Stay Still was so cool </3

I really liked the first past of SSSS. I always meant to go and read part 2 once the archive had built up a bit. I guess I’ll pass on that now.