APPLE Vol. 1 by Various

Pretty pictures do not a comic make.

APPLE, a new comic anthology published by Udon, apparently stands for A Place for People who Love Entertainment. The anthology collects the gorgeous work of a group of Korean illustrators, most of whom work almost exclusively on video games.

At least that’s my understanding. Unfortunately the book contains no information about the creators or the idea behind the project except a brief couple of poorly translated paragraphs in the back that indicate that the book is supposed to be about daydreams.

The art is breathtaking. Because the book is an anthology, some of the artists are naturally going to be more appealing than the others. I love anthologies for precisely this reason; you never know when a book will introduce you to a new favorite artist. Unfortunately with only a few pages per artist, you barely get a taste of some of the creators working on this book. As you flip through the wordless art sections of the book (which, for better or worse, seem to take up the majority of the book’s 260 some odd pages), you may not even realize you are looking at a different person’s art unless you are searching for the names. But the pictures are very pretty.

The writing, on the other hand, is very much not. Again, I’m not sure if the words are poorly translated or the stories just don’t make sense to begin with. Many of the transitions from panel to panel are hard to follow. Many panels are poorly constructed, and though the images within are gorgeous, they add little to the story and many times detract from it. A few of the comics did stick out for me, though.

A simple morality play, Mom’s Wallet by Kyung-Hwan Kim and Kang-Geon has great panel construction and good flow, and though it’s as bizarre as everything else in the book, it actually works as a comic quite nicely. Dol-V01 by An Hee-Cheol (Hichi) seems like it has potential. It was humorous and strange and left off at the right moment to make me want to read the second chapter. Unlike Mom’s Wallet, though, this particular comic has little sense of storytelling. Images seem to be just plopped down on the page wherever they look nicest with little regard to their place in the tale. That said, the pictures are very, very pretty.

The last story in the book, by Jin-Young Lee, does not seem to have a title. It was completely fantastic. I would buy an entire book of this story were it collected as such. Strangely, this comic, which seems to flow so perfectly as one, is oddly out of sorts with the art in the rest of the book. It feels remarkably different from everything else in the anthology and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Overall, as an art book, APPLE is very pretty and very diverse. If it hadn’t contained a single comic book, I wouldn’t have a complaint. I have no problem buying an art book. I’ve purchased every issue of Ashley Wood's art magazine Swallow, and never regretted it. And I don’t mind my pretty anthology comics being weird; I have every volume of Udon’s (and DMP before them) Robot anthology, and I have enjoyed it immensely despite the strangeness of the book and the sometimes disappointing stories mixed in with the good ones. But the sad truth is that the majority of the comics in APPLE simply do not work as comics. So unless you’re willing to just look at the pictures and set the book on your shelf when you’re done, I can’t really recommend the book.

As an aside, let me mention that Udon’s website is dreadful. See for yourself, look at the difference between Udon’s Robot website and the official Japanese Robot website. Also, I’ve made every effort to get the names of the creators right, but sometimes it seems like the name attached to the comic is different from the name in the index. My lack of cultural knowledge in this case leaves me clueless, and I’ve gone with the name attached to the comic. My apologies if I’ve gotten the name wrong within the review itself.



My favorite part:
Within Mom’s Wallet:
What if…I get caught stealing? My mom will turn into a tyrannosaurus!