FREE PIANO (NOT HAUNTED)

A free keyboard and its supernatural inhabitant have a profound effect on a lonely girl’s life.

The weird synth keyboard Margot found on the street with a sign reading “FREE PIANO / NOT HAUNTED” seems like just the thing she needs to make people like her; her ukulele just isn’t doing the trick. Though she’s certain that finding success as a musician is the key to reconnecting with her absent, disengaged father, Margot is nearly deterred by the emergence of the ghost of the piano’s original owner from its keyboard: 1980s one-hit-wonder pop star Vision. Vision’s cool vibes are eventually too much to resist, though, and she becomes a welcome source of support as Margot reckons with her mom’s long working hours, feeling like her dad’s “dumb invisible daughter,” and the success of @sonsofsmash, her best friends’ social media channel about smashing things, which is gaining the followers she’s desperate for. But Vision isn’t the only ghost in the machine, and Margot may be in danger. The art features amusing details, vivid gradients, and bright colors (like Vision’s candy apple red hair and blue eyeshadow), as well as expressively drawn characters. Margot, who has light skin and blond hair, grapples with feelings of abandonment and betrayal when her existence is clearly a lower priority to her father than his own fame in a way that’s accessible and grounding, balancing emotional depth with the creepy mystery.

A lively ghost story that hits all the right notes.