Ghosted in L.A. Volume 1: A Ghost Queer Melodrama

The setting of Ghosted In L.A. right from the first page gets us deep into our characters’ feelings and fears, making them feel real, human, close. We are first driven to see the world through Daphne’s eyes, her dreams, her tastes, and also her fears and insecurities. We feel how every decision she makes seems imposed on her, how disconnected and distanced from everyone she feels, and how that makes incredible sense with how ghosts and their unattached lives appeal to her.

In the first issue, all those insecurities and fears explode as she burst in tears in front of our new cast of house ghosts. Turns out, they’re all understanding (well, except Maurice). The empathy towards Daphne’s pain and mental health issues is a sweet detail there, and, right by the beginning of our second issue, we grasp we’re gonna understand each one of their motives and backstory. That gets reinforced by the cover art of this volume, where they’re all surprised and seemingly scared in a Scooby Doo-like group style. Moreso, this incredibly detailed character exploration is done in a fun, sometimes exaggeratedly melodramatic way, which keeps you reading the page cause it’s fresh, interesting, non-stopping.

Every issue encapsulates a bit of a flashback storyline that always connects with the main psychology of its characters. From Daphne’s arrival to Rycroft Manor, to her being rescued from a harasser by the ghosts. To the brilliant third issue, that links Bernard’s 40s gay repression storyline with a coming-out story, in a way that turns its look in mutual recognition of queerness and shared narrative through their (hi)story.

The art accompanies the care for detail in the narrative, with full-body poses, dramatic innuendos, and background and coloring used to show the emotions in each plane, with the full range of blank background panels to old rooms and sweet details. What’s more important, this art has no fear of getting exaggerated or too over the top. If embraces the too-much of our characters, their facial expressions and emotional innuendos from beginning to end. And, in so, it feels fresh and vibrant, and it plays with it, sometimes choosing to appear more naif or cartoonish and other times more serious, detailed and dramatic.