Welcome to the latest installment of Preview Reviews.  This is where we give advanced glimpses at some of the comics that will be coming out this Wednesday.

Here at Pop Culture Squad, we are decidedly Anti-Spoiler.  We feel that ruining someone’s experience with something for the sake of getting a scoop or clicks is the wrong thing to do. Therefore, we have decided to publish this column, as necessary, with mostly spoiler-free reviews of upcoming issues.  Hopefully, the information that we share with you will increase your excitement for this book.

This week we have a new series from Dan Watters and Caspar Wijngaard called Home Sick Pilots from Image Comics.

You can find this book at your LCS on December 9, 2020.

Home Sick Pilots #1
Image Comics
Written by Dan Watters
Art by Caspar Wijngaard
Letters by Aditya Bidikar
Cover Art by Wijngaard

Original Solicitation:

The team behind LIMBO, DAN WATTERS and CASPAR WIJNGAARD, 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).

PCS Review:

This is a great starting effort for this series. It is creepie and intense. The creative team use interesting time shifting that results in three main time settings through the book. That results in both the beginning and end scenes being “the present”, while the middle scenes are the backstory that sets the readers’ frame of reference for what is to come. The dialogue is well crafted and Watters is able to convey a great deal of character history with natural conversation.

Caspar Wijngaard is absolutely fantastic. His panel structure is dynamic without being chaotic. There is flow to the visual narrative that brings the reader into the fabric of the book. The subject matter makes the feeling of envelopment within the narrative somewhat disconcerting, but only because there is a strong sense of terror in the pages of this book.

The color work and figure designs that Wijngaard delivers are top notch. Aditya Bidikar letters this book flawlessly adding just the right amount of distinction in dialogue balloons and narrative boxes to allow for clear reading and an enjoyable experience.

Home Sick Pilots is really a captivating story. It moves between teenage punk angst and horror suddenly and seamlessly. It is visually stunning and has an excellent plot.