Home Sick Pilots #15 // Review
The Old James House is still standing. The authorities have thrown a hell of a lot at it. They brought in every specialist they could think of. They tried destroying it from below. They tried dropping explosives on it from above. It’s a haunted house. It’s going to take a hell of a lot more to destroy it. If the Old James House is to be destroyed...it must be destroyed from within. Writer Dan Watters concludes Home Sick Pilots with a bang in its fifteenth issue, brought to the page by artist Caspar Wijngaard. The series reaches an appealing conclusion as everything falls apart one last time.
The Home Sick Pilots are trapped in the Old James House. It’s the biggest threat in the whole world, and they can’t leave it. So naturally, they’re going to have to destroy it. The only question is...how? The thing had survived a very serious assault in recent issues, and it’s still every bit as structurally sound as it’s ever been. If they’re going to be able to destroy it, they’re going to need more than a little ghost bomb. They’re going to need some of the ghosts in the house to help out.
Watters has been gliding the series along with a pace that doesn’t allow for a whole lot of explicit explanation. Specific details of a world of weaponized ghosts and spectral energy have seeped in around the edges of a horror drama that hasn’t necessarily been all that interested in letting outsiders into the story. The strange ambiguity had worked in the series’s favor for the most part. Some of the emotional impact that could have been attained in some of the revelations at the end of the issue might have had a bit more punch if Watters had spent a bit more time in explanation, but the final issue works well without it.
Once again, Wijngaard balances the intense and intricate emotions of the characters well against the larger action that’s going on at the end of the series. Each character feels distinct. Emotions can be read at subtle changes in facial expressions as everything comes crashing to a close. The beautiful pastels haunt the page as the story draws to a close. In and of itself, the story might not have been much more than a couple of tiny tears and huge explosions had it not been for Wijngaard’s clever and stylish framing of the drama.
In completion, Watters’s story has a dreamy feel about it. Watters and Wijngaard play with popular imagery...mixing spectral action and comedy with a splash of struggling rock and roll grunge to create something special. It’s a clever mutation of horror and fantasy that has so much more potential than a fifteen-issue series. Part of the appeal lies in the stylish ambiguity between Watters’s scripts and Wijngaard’s visuals. There’s a fascinating world between the panels that could be a really fun playground for anyone wanting to play in a similar world of weaponized ghosts. Of course...Watters does leave the possibility open for a sequel series…
