In our review of Any Given Smile #1, we go back to 1995, as the Smile Curse enters the world of sports gambling.
Any Given Smile #1
Writer: Stephanie Williams
Artist: Pablo Collar
Main Cover: Ashley Witter
Variant Covers: Jock, Pablo Collar, Martin Simmonds, Joëlle Jones
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 9/23/2026
This review contains spoilers
Any Given Smile #1 starts off in St. Augustine, Florida in 1995, where Tommy and Eddie have met up to discuss business. But then Eddie gives Tommy a grin that’s a bit too wide to be trusted and dies.
Five days later, it’s being said that Eddie killed himself, there’s discussion around Max Dupree, who is talked about as a bit of a big deal. Tommy’s also started to see these smiling figures, himself. His beeper’s flashing him a message to smile.
At the Gold Coast Casino, Gloria is told by a coworker about an ex of hers, Marcus, who’s recently died with a creepy grin on his face. But as she leaves the room, we learn that she’s also starting to see the figures.
Going to the radio station, Vince, the host of a betting-related program, has also been getting the smile message. He’s been having trouble sleeping, and knows of the death of Alan, who had also been hit by the curse.
Tommy gets in touch with his ex-wife, cluing her in that something’s wrong. When he goes home later, he turns out to have a classic Red String Conspiracy Wall, as he’s been trying to piece together the string of deaths. He realizes that Eddie likely saw the same thing he’s been seeing lately.
He warns his ex and the kids to stay inside, and drives to the waterfront district to meet with Dupree. Along the way, he’s hearing the Entity’s voice, but he tries to push it out of his mind. When he reaches Dupree, it turns out that while the original intent was for the Sharks to win the upcoming game, Dupree’s planning to throw the game and is betting on his team to lose. He’s got debts to pay off and the guy pushing for him to win in the first place was one of those recent suicides.
Tommy tells him about what happened with Eddie…before the curse kicks in and Dupree watches in horror as Tommy kills himself.
Analysis
One thing I always appreciate about the Smile series, whether in movie form or comic form, is that each entry is never a full-on retread of its predecessor. The curse will find fun and interesting new ways to torment the living hell out of its victims. This time, we don’t necessarily dwell on one victim, but instead, there are a few people that have been hit by the curse: Eddie, then Tommy. Gloria’s seen someone die at some point, as has Vince, and by the end of it, Dupree does, as well.
Which makes me wonder if the narrative overall will continue to follow him through the next few installments, or if we’d get an issue focused on him, one on Gloria, one on Vince… It’s still too early to tell exactly how the creative team’s going to handle the multiple potential victims, but I do know that it’s going to have some gorgeous visuals.
Seriously, I’m loving how the presence of the Entity is shown this time around. Sometimes, an entire panel will go fully monochrome, save for this, quite frankly, lovely magenta hue that really pops. Sometimes, that only color appears in a victim’s eyes, paired with that horrific grin.
Sometimes, that presence is a bit more subtle, with the magenta being simply part of the color scheme in general. Or as a background.
But sometimes, its presence is shown through the distortion of the text in some of the speech bubbles. It interferes with radio broadcasts, its own text as it taunts Tommy isn’t in a perfectly straight line. It wavers and helps add to the unsettling vibe.
Final Thoughts
Any Given Smile #1 is here to bring bring the creep factor to the world of sports gambling, and horror fans something to smile about. While I’m not big on sports or gambling, I do love some well-executed horror, and so far, this is shaping up to be another excellent installment of the Smile series.
