A great artist is always a plus in comics. While the writer puts the story together, the illustrator brings the characters and the stories to life. One of the best in the game is the artist on Image Comics' Home Sick Pilots (HSP), Caspar Wijngaard, who was nice enough to answer questions about HSP and why he got into art.
Sometimes, people have a life-altering moment where they say to themselves, “I’m going to be an artist.” It was different for Caspar Wijngaard.
"It's always been a field I was interested in, I've been drawing since before I can remember, and continued with art into my further education."
Sadly, while art was something he was passionate about, Wijngaard wasn’t without people who tried to discourage or point him in a different direction.
“My teachers would often, if not always, discourage me from pursuing work in American comics, stating (that) not many artists from the UK have had successful careers. I actually took it to heart and moved to London to pursue graphic art and editorial work following university. It wasn't until many years after I graduated that I found a community of aspiring indie comic creators in London.”
Among the many popular projects that Wijngaard has worked on is Home Sick Pilots (HSP). Because Dan Watters (Batman: Dark Patterns) is the writer, I assumed that he pitched the idea. Well, you know what happens when you assume. Wijngaard explains that he and Dan Watters’ relationship predates their career in comics and that HSP was a collaborative effort.
“We were exploring ideas to follow up on our first book and image title LIMBO. I usually draw a bunch of themes and characters I think look cool, and we spitball ideas and themes we'd love to tackle, and see what sticks. We grew fond of the designs of the kids, so we decided to just give them their own book. Dan had expressed wanting to make a book about a girl that fell in love with a haunted house, and I had an itch to explore something akin to Evangelion, teens forced to pilot mechs."
"We had this grungy-looking punk group design ready without a home, so we just mashed the 2 starting points together and voilà!"
If you've read Home Sick Pilots or seen any of the images from the series, you know that Caspar Wijngaard masterfully illustrates horror. After mentioning that, he was nothing but grateful for the compliment. "THANK YOU! Absolutely, I love horror, weirdly easy to draw as its big moods and interpretation, nailing down smaller personal moments and serious beats takes a lot of patience to get right, but horror is just pure emotion and visceral line work."
Home Sick Pilots is a must-read if you’re a comic book fan or collector. The writing is superb, and it’s perfectly complemented by Caspar Wijngaard’s art. It will hit you in the heart with emotional moments and make you hate a character only to love them later. To paraphrase what Wijngaard said earlier, it’s the beauty of creator-owned comics.
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