#IReadsYou review: HOME SICK PILOTS #3

HOME SICK PILOTS NO. 3
IMAGE COMICS – @ImageComics

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Dan Watters
ART: Caspar Wijngaard
COLORS: Caspar Wijngaard
LETTERS: Aditya Bidikar
DESIGN: Tom Muller
COVER: Caspar Wijngaard
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Paulina Ganucheau; Declan Shalvey
28pp, Colors, 3.99 U.S. (February 2021)

Rated “M/Mature”

Home Sick Pilots created by Dan Watters and Caspar Wijngaard

Home Sick Pilots is a new comic book series created by writer Dan Watters and artist Caspar Wijngaard, the creative team of the comic book, Limbo.  Home Sick Pilots apparently focuses on a group of teens and a haunted house with an evil mind of its own.  Letterer Aditya Bidikar and designer Tom Muller complete the series' creative team.

Home Sick Pilots opens in Santa Manos, California, July 18, 1994.  A haunted house known as “the old James house” walks across California, and inside is Ami, the lead singer of the high school punk band, “Home Sick Pilots.”  Ami has been missing for weeks, so how did she get in the old James house?  It has ghosts, and Ami has to find them.  But can Ami's band mates, Buzz and Rip, find her?

Home Sick Pilots #3 opens in Santa Manos, September 1994.  Buzz is dreaming of Ami, but Ami is searching for ghosts that need to be returned to the old James house.  Meanwhile, Buzz learns that his school and the authorities are looking for their fellow schoolmates who are also the band, “Nuclear Bastards.”  Rip is also considered missing, but Buzz knows that Rip has checked out.  Meanwhile, Ami and Buzz both end up in search mode and discover something … unexpected.

THE LOWDOWN:  After reading the first issue of Home Sick Pilots, I wanted to be careful and not provide spoilers from that debut issue in my review.  After reading the second issue, I thought that I might be able to describe the series without spoiling the story … too much.  With this third issue, dear readers, I just want to do whatever it takes for you to try Home Sick Pilots … which might mean spoilers.

Home Sick Pilots #1 showed that the series had potential, and Home Sick Pilots #2 started delivering on that potential.  Home Sick Pilots #3 throws the proverbial curve ball.  Dan Watters and Caspar Wijngaard won't settle for merely delivering the unexpected; they want to fry your imagination.

Caspar Wijngaard's art and colors for the first two issues were both haunting and alluring, but this third issue reveals an emphasis on going deeper into story and mythology.  Wijngaard delivers the frights of horror, but also offers the invention of horror rather than its violence.  He and Watters seem to be working as one weird unit of comic book storytelling, and they are pushing the boundaries of the imagination in a way that classic Vertigo Comics did in the 1990s.

So, I will once again heartily recommend Home Sick Pilots.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of offbeat and imaginative supernatural comic books will want to fly with the Home Sick Pilots.

9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


https://twitter.com/DanPGWatters
https://twitter.com/Casparnova
https://twitter.com/adityab
https://twitter.com/hellomuller
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https://imagecomics.com/


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