Ghost Money is a Belgian Conspiracy Thriller comic written by Thierry Smolderen and illustrated by Dominique Bertail. It was originally published in French in five volumes from 2008 to 2016:
- The Lady from Dubai (2008)
- Chamza's Eyes (2010)
- Death in Dubai (2012)
- Trapped in Tashkit (2014)
- The Black Cloud (2016)
The English translation was published by Lion Forge in 2017, split into ten issues, while a five-volume German version was released by Schreiber & Leser between 2013 and 2016.
The comic contains examples of following tropes:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The comic takes place in 2024, about a decade after it was published. In many ways, it is eerily prescient, but on the other hand, we are still waiting on the personal suborbital jets and mind-controlled battle robots...
- All Love Is Unrequited: Lindsey falls in love with Chamza, who is in love with Umar, and while Umar reciprocates her at first, he grows distant from her following his capture and torture.
- Ambiguously Bi: Chamza initially only has eyes for Umar, but as the series progresses, starts paying more attention to Lindsey's feelings for her, including having a borderline homoerotic dream about her in volume four and being surprised-but-not-repulsed by Lindsey kissing her upon their reunion.
- Big Brother Is Watching You: Surveillance technology is everywhere in the world described by the comic (which, mind you, began publication four years before Snowden's revelations). The most disturbing instance are the microchips implanted into Chamza's eyes by the Americans, letting them spy on her 24/7.
- Coming of Age Story: Lindsey starts off as an ordinary college student, but falls in love with Chamza and is drawn into a world of international conspiracy and terrorism, from which she emerges as a combat-hardened fighter and survivor.
- During the War: Subverted. The comic opens during the 2004 Battle of Fallujah, but this turns out to just be an distant prologue-slash-introductions of the bad guys, after which the story jumps two decades into the future.
- Fanservice: Lindsey and Chamza run around topless a lot more often than is strictly required by the plot.
- Friends with Benefits: Lindsey becomes this with the Shanghai hacker/android-controller Hu Chuan, after he helps her reestablish contact with Chamza in book three (despite Lindsey still being in love with Chamza, who has no idea of her feelings).
- It Began with a Twist of Fate: Chamza's absolute trust in Lindsey stems from the fact that their first meeting (where Chamza pulled Lindsey out of a stampede in the immediate aftermath of a suicide bombing) could not have been anything but accidental — in other words, she reasons that Lindsey couldn't have been a plant or part of any scheme targeting her and her fortune.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: At first, Chamza believes President Azamatov to be her father, until it is revealed that her mother had an affair with the Al-Quaeda banker Haddad. It is then revealed that that reveal was a deep fake by the Americans, but her mom did have an affair with another man, namely, the inventor of the Black Cloud, who left all of his fortunes to her.
- Meaningful Name: "Chamza" is a cognate of "hamsa"
— a palm-shaped amulet in many Middle-Eastern cultures symbolizing protection, particularly, from evil eye — darkly ironic, considering what happens to Chamza's eyes in the story. The connection is further reinforced by Chamza actually wearing a hamsa in the final volume, during her Do No Adjust Your Set speech — after she discovers that her late real father wished for her to effectively become the protector of the whole world. - Monumental Damage: The third volume culminates in the demolition of the Burj Al Arab hotel, one of Dubai's most iconic sights, by Islamist terrorists.
- Our Presidents Are Different: Peter Albert Burton, newly elected in 2024, is seen as President Corrupt by Lindsey and most of her peers and is eventually revealed to have used the fortune that the bin Laden family made off the 9/11 stocks crash to finance his campaign. Azamatov, meanwhile, is a classical Central Asian President for Life, i.e. a President Evil masquerading as President Personable.
- Remote Body: In the future imagined by the comics, human-sized androids are a fact of life, but the AI is not sophisticated enough yet to steer them, so professional operators like Hu Chuan steer them remotely to work in hazardous environments, like building sites and war zones. In addition to regular androids, there exist combat-focused Mini-Mecha like the one Lindsey buys to bodyguard her in the Valley and gives to Chuan to steer.
- Rescue Romance: Lindsey falls head over heels for Chamza after the latter rescues her from a stampede. The fact that Chamza is also obscenely rich, exotically beautiful, and kindhearted didn't help, either.
- Spanner in the Works: The Americans' plans would have gone of without a hitch, had it not been for Lindsey and her love for Chamza.
- Spoiled Sweet: Chamza is heiress to a vast fortune of unknown origins, but is still a very nice and caring person, particularly towards Lindsey and Umar. Especially in the first volume, when she drags Lindsey on a shopping tour from London to Dubai (in her private suborbital plane, no less) simply because she wants to hang out with her.
- Spoiler Cover: The cover of the final volume spoils Lindsey's gradual evolution into an Action Girl by depicting her toting an assault rifle with a battle droid in the background.
