Why you should be reading: Scott Pilgrim

Anybody who visits this site should be reading Scott Pilgrim, in fact if you haven’t just go and buy the books now, then come back and we can all discuss just how awesome they are.  Written and illustrated by Brian Lee O’Malley so far five out of the six books have been released to high praise and now that filming has begun on the Edgar Wright directed, Michael Cera starring feature film the books popularity has begun to skyrocket.  Set in Toronto, Canada.   Scott Pilgrim tells the story of Scott, a 24 year old slacker, gamer and (wannabe) rock star who shares a bed in a one room apartment with his gay roommate Wallace.  Scott meets and falls in love with the mysterious Ramona V Flowers but before he can be with her he must defeat the league of her seven evil ex boyfriends led by the elusive Gideon Gordon Graves.  Scott also plays bass guitar in the semi popular band “Sex Bob-omb” who are writing their album and trying to make it big, all of this whilst trying to deal with the everyday trails and tribulations of growing up.

The dialogue in Scott Pilgrim is some of the strongest dialogue I have ever read in a comic book.  If you’re in your early to mid twenties you’ll find some of the conversations that the characters have in the book very familiar, several of the conversations that take place in the book I know I’ve had with my group of friends, you really do feel like the characters are having an actual conversation. Whilst realistic in tone, the conversations can get very postmodern at times with several of the characters readily acknowledging that they are in a comic book which can lead some some amusing outcomes.  I’m a really big fan of the way that O’Malley draws, I know that fans of traditional anime tend to dislike the American anime look but it works here, especially when the characters are emoting and it looks good in the fight scenes and when the game references video games.

If your a fan video games then you’ll be able to pick up on the various nods to video games throughout the each of the books.  All of the bands that appear in books have names that at least reference video games.  Sonic & Knuckles, Sex Bob-Omb & The Clash at Demonhead are just a few of the bands mentioned and you can plainly see the references to video games, well apart from The Clash at Demonhead but that is a game title I assure you, look here.  On top of that every time Scott defeats one of Romonas evil exs he receives coins and XP, he even has a leveling up pose.  Occasionally Scott will he given bonus items to use, one of these is a Mithril skateboard he can’t use it however because he never took ‘skateboarding proficiency’ back when he was at school.  If you’ve ever been to Toronto then you’ll recognise a lot of the locations that appear in the comic as they are real life places.  Sneaky Dee’s, The Toronto Public Library, Queen Street West, Honest Eds and several other popular locations in the city.

And finally there’s a film being made and not much has been revealed so far apart from a few productions dairies, and a lot of cryptic photographs it already looks like this film is going to be a hit.  It’s been written and directed by Egdar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), Micheal Cera (Superbad) is playing Scott Pilgrim, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Die Hard 4) is Romona Flowers and the supporting cast includes Chris Evans, Brandon Routh and Jason Schwartzman.  Toronto based band Metric are already on board to work on the soundtrack and I guessing that the song ‘Scott Pilgrim’ by Plumtree will also be making an appearance seeing as O’Malley did name his character after their song. I really hoping this film doesn’t fail, judging by the talent involved I can’t see how it will.

Book six is scheduled tentatively for next spring / summer which I’m guessing is in conjunction with the films release. I’ve just scratched the surface of Scott Pilgrim and to explain much more would spoil it and is really is one of those stories that’s best discovered by the reader themselves, hopefully this little overview will entice you enough to go and pick it up.

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