A review by crookedtreehouse
Home Sick Pilots, Vol. 1: Teenage Haunts by Dan Watters
2.0
A bit of a frustrating Law Of Diminishing Returns books. What begins as a typical, but well-fleshed out haunted house/teen outsider coming-of-age story devolves into kind of a muddled mess of mythology that even the author doesn't quite understand.
I enjoyed the protagonist. I liked her friends. The deaths were interesting. But it tried to take a turn into sci-fi detective mech story about halfway through, and then it seemed to entirely lose its focus. The final issue's "climax" of the protagonists unlikely kind of sort of battle with the sci-fi team's kind of sort of mech ended almost instantly and seemed to undo the entire buildup from the previous issues. I was left thinking "Why did I read this? And more importantly why did the person write this if they were going to abandon their characters and premise so quickly?"
It's comics, so I'm sure the next volume could undo or retcon the ending to this volume, but I have a difficult time believing they can make any sense of it. It seemed like the whole volume was to set up a minor character from this chapter becoming the protagonist for the next collection. Except they didn't make that character at all interesting during this storyline, so why should I invest myself in another volume?
It's a pity because I'm not usually a horror fan, and I thought the first two issues showed some real potential.
If you're a fan of subgenre whiplash in your graphic novels, you might really enjoy this. It wasn't for me.
I enjoyed the protagonist. I liked her friends. The deaths were interesting. But it tried to take a turn into sci-fi detective mech story about halfway through, and then it seemed to entirely lose its focus. The final issue's "climax" of the protagonists unlikely kind of sort of battle with the sci-fi team's kind of sort of mech ended almost instantly and seemed to undo the entire buildup from the previous issues. I was left thinking "Why did I read this? And more importantly why did the person write this if they were going to abandon their characters and premise so quickly?"
It's comics, so I'm sure the next volume could undo or retcon the ending to this volume, but I have a difficult time believing they can make any sense of it. It seemed like the whole volume was to set up a minor character from this chapter becoming the protagonist for the next collection. Except they didn't make that character at all interesting during this storyline, so why should I invest myself in another volume?
It's a pity because I'm not usually a horror fan, and I thought the first two issues showed some real potential.
If you're a fan of subgenre whiplash in your graphic novels, you might really enjoy this. It wasn't for me.