Story by KwangHyun Seo, Art by JinHo Ko
Yen Press, 208 pp.
Rating: Teen

“The word croquis comes from French and means simply “sketch”.” (Wikipedia: Croquis.)

Da-Il is the latest assistant to famous comic creator Ho Go, but, sadly, he’s not much of an artist. Still, that’s not the kind of thing that’ll keep him from attempting to fulfill a dream that he and his deceased mother shared: to draw the hopes and dreams of everyone! Of course, not being able to draw does get in the way, but as it turns out that’s the least of his worries. During his first night on the job he encounters Mu-Huk, a spirit who informs Da-Il that he’s a Croquis, a person with ability to give life to his drawings and ideas in the form of ghosts, and it’s Mu-Huk’s job to dispatch these other spirits. Thus begins one of the oddest books I’ve ever come across.

I’m really not sure where to begin. The mechanics behind the plot are just amazingly convoluted, yet incredibly interesting as well. Da-Il can bring to life the images he draws. These then become ghosts that inhabit their own lil’ sphere, a realm that sometimes crosses over with the real world trapping Da-Il inside of it… but Mu-Huk’s a spirit that battles these spirits and who was also given form by Da-Il’s power! To make things even more confusing, he apparently doesn’t need to actually draw anything to create these spirits. We quickly learn that simple stray thoughts and subconscious desires can create them as well. D’oh. Things get even more complicated when Mu-Huk reveals that he then takes these little adventures and feeds them into the minds of other artists (painters, etc) as inspiration, so… yeah. It’s a bit complex and confusing. There’s also a weird connection between the spirits and realms that Da-Il creates and the real world, as at least one or two things are altered in the real world following these otherworldly battles. It’s just mind-bendingly complicated at times, especially since Da-Il seems to create these things at random with little to no warning. He literally runs into a ghost in one part of the story, and actually encounters one that was created by another Croquis at another point. It’s… confusing.

Thankfully, once you get past all the confusing mechanics behind his powers Croquis Pop is kind of fun and there are some interesting directions that the story could go. The encounter with another spirit created by a different Croquis is a nice glimpse at the possibilities, as is the idea that everything he does could pop up elsewhere in some other artists creation. Of course it’s not all just supernatural weirdness, Da-Il is the newest and youngest of Ho Go’s assistants, and the other assistants make up the supporting cast and provide some relationship oriented drama as he gets on the bad side of one right off the bat. There’s also a mysterious museum curator who is some how connected to Mu-Huk and the whole Croquis phenomena as well. Plenty of different hooks and characters floating around and the story is just so wild and out there that you get the feeling that anything could happen.

JinHo Ko’s art isn’t too bad and he does a nice job at rendering some of the more bizarre occupancies. The first-time spirits Da-Il encounters are essentially stick figures he scribbled in the dust. JinHo switches his style to render them in a rough sketchy style which contrasts heavily with the cleaner and more detailed style he uses for Da-Il. Unfortunately ,after this one encounter just about every other spirit is drawn in the same style as everything else. Still it’s a nice effect and something that might turn up again. It would be kind of fun to see Da-Il and Mu-Huk doing battle with an spirit drawn in an impressionist style, or perhaps something done in a more classical bent. His renderings of the action sequences can be a bit confusing at times, but for the most part he does a great job depicting Mu-Huk’s various attacks and the odd abilities that some of the other Croquis creations wield.

Croquis Pop is definitely an interesting title, but I’m a little worried that the complexity of the powers mechanics might be a bit of a turn off. There’s really no clear rules by which these things are created and they seem to happen at random or when the plot requires it. Outside of that it’s an OK teen hero series.

Volume 1 of Croquis Pop is available now.