Writer, Artist, Letterer & Cover Artist: Dawn Brown
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $12.99
Release Date: September 10, 2025
What happens when we die? Do we immediately arrive at our eternal home? Or do we linger until we resolve the things we left unsettled in life? As Dawn Brown's story opens, a ghost hovers before a black winged creature. While it awaits ascension, it tells its companion about the time it spent with a Gracie. Why did the ghost haunt a little girl? And how will its conversations with her help Gracie as she grows? Let's leap into Gracie's Ghost TP and see!
Story
Gracie is a young girl who doesn't run with the popular crowd. No matter how hard Gracie tries, the students at her Catholic school exclude her. Gracie tries her best to appease them. Instead, they shoot spitballs at her in class, call her a Turd, and push her down on the playground.
Gracie’s Ghost TP introduces her doting father, her strict, careworn mom, and her fun-loving brother. As Gracie explores her world, her father encourages her imagination. Gracie appreciates nature while her schoolmates enthuse over the latest Atari games. The girl pursues her interests and works for what she wants. Yet whether at school or home, life never seems to treat Gracie fairly.
While Dawn Brown shares glimpses of her childhood through short episodes, she also charts the rise of pop culture. Movies and rock music loom large as Gracie struggles to fit in. Yet, as she never gives up, Gracie's family supports her. As the ghost reveals its history and the trauma that helped it become a more person, Gracie develops skills and abilities that help the storyteller become the woman she is today.
Art
Gracie is a tomboy who enjoys playing outside. When she observes a squirrel climb a tree, she races to the garage, picks up a hammer, and builds aids to help her emulate a popular superhero. While other children seek easy hiding places, Gracie avoids capture by climbing to the top of a tree. When her father takes her and her brother to a pet shop, a monkey commands their attention. Later, another animal will make Gracie beam with delight. Yet caring for it will entail hardship and sacrifice in Gracie's Ghost TP.
Dawn Brown employs a loose, cartoonist style as Gracie navigates her childhood alongside her ghost. A spaceship cruises through space while Gracie explores a planet in her imaginary journeys. The shelf display above her bed represents her mother's attempts to steer Gracie along the "correct" path. Yet it casts a shadow over Gracie and frightens the ghost. A swash of gray may fill the background at home or school. Outside, Gracie often muses on life as she plays beside gray tree trunks and beneath leaves.
When life gets tough, Gracie withdraws to a castle she constructed using cardboard boxes from her father. After talking him into rewarding her for her efforts, she struts through her home in Gracie's Ghost TP. She proudly displays another attempt to impress others until her mother steers her back to Earth.
While Gracie encounters favoritism and persecution, Dawn Brown fills balloons with generous-sized dialogue. Her ghost speaks into cloudy balloons, while intense emotion or raised voices turn balloons spiky. Sound effects ensue when Gracie pushes past her limits and suffers the consequences, or when the other children disdain her uniqueness. Thanks to Image Comics for providing a review copy.
Final Thoughts
While charting a journey through adolescence and pondering the afterlife, Gracie’s Ghost TP reminds us that the easiest path through life is seldom the most interesting. Instead of bowing to tribalism or conformity, greatness comes by nurturing our creativity and pursuing our abilities.
Rating 9.6/10
This review originally appeared on Comic Book Dispatch.
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