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“Home Sick Pilots” #1

By | December 10th, 2020
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

What happens when you try to throw a gig in the house that kills people? beware spoilers!

Cover by TCaspar Wijngaard
Written by Dan Watters
Illustrated by Caspar Wijngaard
Lettered by VC’s Aditya Bidikar
Designed by Tom Muller

The team behind LIMBO, DAN WATTERS (Lucifer, COFFIN BOUND) and CASPAR WIJNGAARD (Star Wars, Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt), launch a brand-new ONGOING SERIES.

In the summer of 1994, a haunted house walks across California. Inside is Ami, lead singer of a high school punk band—who’s been missing for weeks. How did she get there, and what do these ghosts want? Expect three-chord songs and big bloody action that’s Power Rangers meets The Shining (yes, really).

“Home Sick Pilots” #1 has stood out in Image previews purely on its distinct aesthetic. The pink focused beach horror preview pages promise a really unique vibe, and Caspar Wijngard, of “Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt” fame, does not disappoint with so many of these pages being an absolute joy to pour over. Aditya Bidikar continues to be an exciting name in lettering, blending style and clarity. Dan Watters’ plot and script also give an excellent introduction to this story, giving a great sense of our characters, strong narrative voice, and excellent atmosphere. “Home Sick Pilots” #1 is the start of a story that gives enough intrigue and style to hook readers for more.

Dan Watters’ script for “Home Sick Pilots” #1 is a great take on blending punk and horror. Watter’s blends the playfulness of the young cast with the unknowable horror of the house at the center of this comic. The introduction is a great example of this with Ami’s narration over the rising of this walking house really builds the “strange” and the quick transition to the introduction of the titular Home Sick Pilots and their rivals the Nuclear Bastards with the caption “Some shitty trash derivative shit” covering their speech balloons really gives the tone right from the jump. We also get the great line “we should throw a gig at the house that kills people” which really cements the punk edge that fits with these kids. Another really great element of the pacing of “Home Sick Pilots” #1 are the all black pages with Ami’s narration spaced across the page. It’s a really fascinating intrusion in the action of the scene but really sells the Ami’s lost humanity. We feel as though she exists in a void, consumed by the house and even though we are seeing her before that we are getting the ramifications from these pages, calling back to the “strange” of this book.

Watters’ handle on characters and dialogue more of a mixed bag. While the dialogue is pretty strong and there’s a wittiness and pace that keeps up with the energy of the rest of the book, it’s hard to differentiate the different ways these characters speak. Everyone sounds vaguely the same which isn’t a huge issue since the report does not feel like the focus. It’s very servicable. However an element that really took me out of the story a few times was Watters use of British vernacular in a story supposedly set in California. It’s noticeable in a way that I just assumed that there was a part of the UK that looked like California and I didn’t know, and started reading the characters with British accents before realizing the book was indeed set in California. So in fewer words, it was a little distracting. Storywise, the whole of this first issue gels incredibly well aside from the end coda. It felt very much like a pilot that got picked up and added a stinger to bring people back for the series. There’s already so much to hook readers but the last few pages felt like a really quick promise of the series goes next storywise.

What really made “Home Sick Pilots”#1 for me was Caspar Wijngaard’s artwork. Wijngaard’s work on “Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt” was proof enough of his stylistic versatiliy, but “Home Sick Pilots” shows a real balance in tone. Wijngaard’s punk show grit and solid colors fit the same palette of the dreamy California night gradient and into the all out bloody horror of the house. There’s a lot to be said of capturing the atmosphere that Watters sets up. Wijngaard’s page layouts also add to the incredible sense of style this book has without compromising the clarity in storytelling on most pages. The biggest flex of this issue is the cross section of the house that shows the Home Sick Pilots and the Nuclear Bastards breaking into the house and bumping into each other, which is an extremely cool page and very comics specific, however it does require you to suddenly read half the page from right to left which a bit of a clunky switch for my smooth brain. Despite this, there are a lot of slick pages and excellent uses of borderless panels and a lot of white negative space. Aditya Bidikar also turns a challenge into a quirk with the lack of borders in speech bubbles. There are a lot of colored word balloons which really enhance the dynamic style of this book.

“Home Sick Pilots”#1 is a really stylish introduction to a mecha, punk, horror series. Tonally all the hooks are there and Caspar Wijngaard’s artwork grasps the vision. There’s a great sense of cohesion from the creative team about the style and direction of this book and it feels like we get more of that in an aesthetic sense than story. However, there’s a lot here to grab readers and hopefully this book continues to be as unique as it’s debut issue.

Final Verdict: 9 – “Home Sick Pilots” #1 has horror and style coming out the wazoo.


Kenneth Laster

Kenneth is a cartoonist, critic, and cryptid somewhere in the crumbling empire of the United States. Hit him up on twitter @disasterlaster to see dumb jokes and artwork.

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