Home Sick Pilots #2
Image Comics
Writer: Dan Watters
Art: Caspar Winjngaard & Aditya Bidikar
After the first issue of Image Comic’s new release Home Sick Pilots not being anything about drivers that miss their homes, for some reason, I must say I was rather intrigued. It was a good surprise, however, to see this is a brand new horror comic with a fun and engaging setting and characters.
This chapter starts off by showing us how the Home Sick Pilots met each other, a little less than a year prior to the last issue’s events. In this flashback, we can see that, despite being a bit different, Ami hit it off quite well with both her bandmates, especially with Buzz. The comic then cuts back to 1994, with the boys still outside the Old James House trying to figure a way back in so they can help Ami. After failing they opt for going to the police which, considering Rip’s previous encounter with them, could result in some trouble. Ami, on the other hand, finds herself in a famous actress’s apartment, “ghosty around the edges”, trying to recover a horseshoe that belongs in the haunted house.
Watters’ storytelling is a fresh read for me. The story, still in its early stages, still flows quite smoothly presenting the concepts and foundations of this world in a paced manner. This results in a script with little to no exposition which helps with the comics’ immersion as well as the mystery about Old James House. Before this, I believe I’d only read the beginning of his Lucifer run back in 2018. The pacing and concealing of information were equally present then but such writing resources do so much more for original characters and story.
Caspar Winjngaard’s art style is a treat to the readers’ eyes for sure. His lines are concise and lean more towards a cartoony style with very strongly defined outlines and simple facial features for most characters. This changes when portraying ghosts or gore. In these cases, the artist seems to rely on more detailing with cracks in the ghost’s skin and lightly defined minor features such as long fingernails. The coloring, also by Winjngaard, are wonderful to see. They always help to clearly set the tone for the scene, for example, making red a dominant foreground color in a scene right after the boys escape the manor.
Lettering is by one of my favorites, Aditya Bidikar. As always his work is great in the sense that the idle reader does not put much notice in it letting all the attention go of the illustrations. There was one panel, however, that I enjoyed very much, which framed the art inside a sound effect of ‘FOOM’. This is very stylish and helps to bring about how impactful the event in the panel was to the whole scene.
Readers beware! This is not a nice story about drivers missing their homes. This is an incredible horror comic book about fitting in and handling change. With a talented creative team working together this series is bound to enter the industry’s history with a nice change to the haunted manor story frame.
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Home Sick Pilots #2
Readers beware! This is not a nice story about drivers missing their homes. This is an incredible horror comic book about fitting in and handling change. With a talented creative team working together this series is bound to enter the industry's history with a nice change to the haunted manor story frame.
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