Comic Review: Home Sick Pilots Vol.1 (Image Comics)

Image Comics releases a horror graphic novel that almost relates to Friday the 13^th, but a story about a haunted house around California in Home Sick Pilots, the first volume.

So I expect to get another horror comic that focuses on a haunted house, but this time it’s becoming a bit interesting because imagine, what happens if the whole house is actually alive? Like one of the golem castles that can stand up with its two feet. The story is written by Dan Watters and illustrated by Caspar Wijingaard, Dan is a UK-based comic book writer who wrote his first book LIMBO on Image Comics in 2016. He’s currently writing the relaunch of Lucifer for Vertigo’s Sandman Universe, as well as Deep Roots for Vault Comics. While Caspar not just illustrated Limbo, but he also illustrated a collaboration book which is 24 Panels where he illustrated a short comic called AMYG DALA who is written by Sara Kenney.

The front cover of the comic shows a daunting image of the girl who becomes so much in despair, she became a ghost after being consumed by that house. Apparently, the palm trees are much taller than it takes the whole space of the background. What makes this cover art so eerie is that the skulls on the background could only mean that the house is haunted, and so does this cover art. The story starts when the Tower of Babil became a fuckin’ giant and obliterated everyone off of this continent, but no it’s just the haunted house that became alive because a girl is controlling it. The story truly starts in summer, in 1994, where the Nuclear Bastards are performing a show at an abandoned bowling alley when suddenly some cops are driving them out because they were “trespassing on private property.” And then after that, they get into trouble with Nuclear Bastards who are looking for a fight. But before that, one of the main characters mentioned The Old James House which is a haunted house that just heard rumors about a killer house or a hell house. Some people say that it’s an eyesore to them but that haunted house stinks of magic. And for all of that, Ami was consumed by that house.

The house has its own purpose, but it takes more than that to build power, first Ami needed to retrieve a horseshoe that was stolen by some rich folk’s home, and that horseshoe is haunted. However, that horseshoe protects her and makes it her good luck charm, because who else thinks that every other possession is a good luck charm. And then suddenly she turned into a silver Clayface, the battle became too cheesy, the ghost who possessed inside of Ami actually destroyed her. The problem with that house is that a mad man is trying to destroy humanity and make them his slaves, and now the house became a giant, and it’s fighting against a giant VHS tape, entangled all over the body. It’s like you’re watching Godzilla vs. King Kong movie, instead, we get giant video cassette tapes fighting against a giant haunted house, is this very daunting or is this whole story actually makes sense to readers?

The story can be eerie to know that the haunted house is alive and turns into a giant, but the whole thing is that the life of a young teenage girl became more complicated than it ever is because every other of her friends and enemies thought that she’s dead, and one of her friends was mentally unstable. I don’t fully understand the whole story but it seems that every other ghost who wandered in the depths of this planet can start its own wars. The art is something else because the whole structure of that haunted house almost seems to illustrate a demon’s eye right at the balcony. I don’t know why, but this is mostly what Rita Ripulsa made the monsters grow bigger on power rangers, while the whole house just transformed like the giant of the Tower of Babil from Final Fantasy IV. The character designs are flawless, not just because he drew the characters from power rangers, but most of the designs of the characters are something that I can relate to. The designs of the monsters around the comic are just so weird, for example, the first thing that the main character sees around the house is a man whose face is shaped like a horseshoe, and a videotaped monster who actually transformed into a normal human with VHS tape entangled all over. I can’t say enough where the whole design came from, but this comic became a dark fantasy genre just like Berserk than a normal teenage drama comic. But you know what, this comic is what most Berserk fans would expect something like this during the eclipse and the sacrifice, you’d just get enough for creating a story like this. So Home Sick Pilots comic is a very dark and eerie comic to read, if you ever want to experience the black magic over the haunted house, then this is for you.