In Your Skin #1 is Bollywood Meets The Substance With an Obsessive Twist (Early Review)

Obsession is a common theme in horror.  It was one of the central themes in 2024’s masterpiece The Substance, where an obsession with youth led a fading celebrity to use a black-market drug to create a younger version of herself only for it to have horrific and terrifying side effects. It’s also the core themes of Image Comics’ upcoming new series In Your Skin. Written by Aditya Bidikar with art by SOM and Francesco Segala, In Your Skin obsession to a different extreme, leaning into the obsession one woman has for her favorite Bollywood star and the disturbing length she will go to when said star decides to call it quits.

With elements of body horror, eroticism, and fandom gone too far, In Your Skin #1 sets up an unsettling tale that explores some big ideas of identity, celebrity, and the line between the two. The issue is a fascinating, almost meditative introduction to super fan Priyanka and the focus of her disturbing obsession, legendary actress Ayesha Sen and while it has its moments of being just a little confusing and almost a little too restrained, it’s an excellent start to a haunting tale.

Rating 4 out of 5

In Your Skin #1 Makes Fandom Unsettling

In In Your Skin #1, we’re introduced to Priyanka, a Bollywood superfan who has a serious obsession with her favorite star, Ayesha Sen. This obsession seems to inform everything about Priyanka’s life. She’s watched all of Ayesha’s movies over and over and even can perform all of her dances beat for beat, the latter so much so that when she’s asked the mix up her dances at work — Ayesha is in entertainment — she refuses and it costs her her job. Priyanka’s obsession with Ayesha is also impacting her personal lire and relationships, too, as her relationship with her mother is strained. But when an opportunity to meet her idol is presented to her, what should be her greatest moment doesn’t go quite as planned — and when Ayesha makes a surprising announcement that signals the end of her career, Priyanka takes things into her hands in a truly terrifying and horrifying fashion.

We won’t spoil exactly how that transpires here — it’s a reveal that really needs to be experienced in the fantastic art in this book. It’s also something that feels like it is still unfolding. While a lot happens or is suggested in this first issue, one of the more interesting things about In Your Skin is not Priyanka’s disturbing obsession but the mystery of how she manages to integrate herself into Ayesha’s life. What Priyanka does is disturbing, but the issue leaves readers with some big questions about how she pulls it off as well as what comes next.

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The issue is also interesting in how it portrays Priyanka as a fan. For most of the issue, Priyanka seem relatively normal. Yes, she is very much Ayesha’s biggest fan, but it is only when you realize, slowly, that Priyanka doesn’t seem to have a life or a focus outside of her favorite star that things begin to feel heavy and unsettling. Bidikar does an incredibly job of turning things so carefully within the story that you don’t quite know exactly the moment Priyanka goes from being relatable to unsettling you just realize that’s where you’ve ended up.

Of course, there are some elements to the book that feel a little under-explained even this early on. The nature of her relationship with Nachiket took a couple of reads to grasp and there’s a moment in Priyanka’s conversation with her mother that feels a little like it doesn’t make sense — a conversation goes from zero to sixty very quickly and leaves you with a little whiplash. Even with these small things, however, In Your Skin has a great momentum and sets up what feels like it could be one of the most unsettling body horror comics we’ve seen in a while, and one that is deeply psychological as well.

In Your Skin #1 goes on sale from Image Comics on April 22nd.

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