December 2009
 |
Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life Sunday, December 20 at 4:00 pm W: Bryan Lee O'Malley A: Bryan Lee O'Malley Publisher: Oni Press, 2004 From the Oni website: Scott Pilgrim's life is totally sweet. He's 23 years old, in a rock band, "between jobs," AND dating a cute high school girl. Everything's fantastic until a seriously mind-blowing, dangerously fashionable, rollerblading delivery girl named Ramona Flowers starts cruising through his dreams and sailing by him at parties. Will Scott's awesome life get turned upside-down? Will he have to face Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends in battle? Short answer: yes. Long answer: Scott Pilgrim, Volume 1. $11.95 |
Comments
UnshavenMarc Mon, Jan 4th, 2010 at 1:06 PM Sadly, I missed this meeting... And had I been there, I guess I'd be one loud voice of dissent over this piece. Scott Pilgrim is far from "the best" of anything I've ever read. Sales numbers be damned. I guess my biggest gripe may stem from my own age and experience. Bryan Lee O'Malley constructs a very believable sect of slackers, stoners, and hipsters in this weird little manga inspired graphic novel--I'll give him that. As I told my roommate shortly after finishing this book... "If I were 11 or 12? This would be my bible! But I'm 28, hence it's not even worth the paper it's printed on.".
Scott Pilgrim meanders through life, with no job, and no more ambition then to play bass in his band, and perhaps score with girls? Within the confines of this short volume, we get introduced to Scott and his world: Suburban/Urban Canada. Scott plays in a band. He's "dating" a hip chinese girl who's still in high school (he's 23). His friends rag on him for doing it. He seems to be guarded from some emotional pain of a previous relationship. For a second, I'm totally with this book. And 2 seconds later? Everything falls apart.
Suddenly we're "traveling in subspace" and meeting a girl Scott lusts after, maybe. Who can tell? He seems awfully obsessed. And like an ADHD child, O'Malley just forgets the high school girlfriend while we explore this new avenue. Sure this could be explained as us following the slacker hero's psyche and his own "ADHD" drives the focus of the book. But it just feels sloppily thrown down on the page. By the end of the book, we're watching video game inspired fights, and crowds "knocked out" by the power of punk rock.
I admit, I took the "traveling by subspace" (or whatever), the video game fights, etc... all as stylistic interpretations of actual events. Turns out though, I was completely wrong. The world Scott exists in is actually a "video game" world so-to-speak. Does that change my opinion? Well, not really. Slackers in a video game world are no more fun to read about then slackers in the normal world. By the end of the book, Scott's been given his series long task ("Defeat Ramona's 7 evil ex-boyfriends!"). Of course, there's still the matter of his "relationship" with the high schooler... the fact that he has no job, and he's an insanely good fighter. Sorry folks... it all adds up to something less than I can care about.
O'Malley's psuedo-manga style has few high points. At it's high points, it's kinetic, stylized, and beautifully paced for comic effect. But these great moments are so few and far between just boring, rushed pen and ink work that's more concerned about getting us through exposition than delivering panels to savor.
Overall, I found the book as a whole to be an example of how old I must feel. Scott Pilgrim as a "hero" to be is a complete wash... He's a lucky idiot who'll get the girl, and save the world, all for seemingly no more effort than it takes to break the heart of a high schooler and maybe man up and get a friggen job. Sorry folks... If I want successful slacker comedy, I'll watch Clerks again.
bsokol Mon, Jan 4th, 2010 at 1:59 PM
UnshavenMarc wrote:
Overall, I found the book as a whole to be an example of how old I must feel.
I felt that the subspace, video game, super powers goofiness was exactly what this book needed in order to not be what you think it is: a boring story about a slacker.
EGarneau Tue, Jan 5th, 2010 at 4:37 PM
Marc, I think the fact that a book like this not only topped OUR sales charts but does extremely well in the comic world as a whole means it's worth noticing; at the very least it's worth more than "the paper it's printed on." It's strange that you said you would have loved this as a kid... just because the adult you doesn't like it, does that make it worthless, or merely not for you? Because there's a big difference there, obviously.
That said, I'm really glad people are using these comment sections!
UnshavenMarc Sat, Jan 9th, 2010 at 3:43 PM
Good point Eric. I think the book now does nothing for me personally, because of my age. Which TO ME alone, makes it low in value. So it's worth to me, at this point... just not high. And yes it's a good seller, cause it must speak, and speak well to it's target audience. I just happen to be out of that particular audience.
EGarneau Sun, Jan 10th, 2010 at 12:36 PM
I totally get that, Marc. That's how I felt the first time I read it. The second time, it worked for me. I'm not sure why there was a difference between times one and two, and I'm not saying you should reread it or anything... just, I know where you're coming from.
Log In
