The week before Volume 6 of this series, I plowed through 1 through 5, borrowed from the free library. I couldn't help myself. Every chapter was clever and compelling. The series is really quite funny, but in addition, deeply moving. Bare in mind that I am in fact the sort of disaffected fellow that this series is about.
Scott Pilgrim is a 23 year-old bass guitarist for a Toronto indy band called Sex Bob-omb (Yes, like the little walking bomb guys from Super Mario Bros.) who's recently rebounded into a relationship with a high school girl. Now, I know that sounds skeevy, but they really have a sort of high school puppy-love relationship. Knives Chau, WORSHIPS her new boyfriend and is awestricken by the music of his band and their contemporaries. I don't want to ruin any of the plot of v.1 for those of you who haven't seen the movie, but I'll leave it at this; While knee deep in his puppy-love relationship, Scott falls MADLY in love with an NYC trasplant named Ramona Flowers. Ramona, is a Manhattan. Dry but sweet to the tongue and a bit tart. One of those "seemingly too cool to care" hipsters who's been through enough drama in her 20-something years to seek an escape to a foreign land. Also there's a lot of fighting...A LOT of fighting.
Bryan Lee O'Malley is one of my personal heroes, and its this book that won me over. I'd recently finished Persepolis and while reflecting on how Satrapi was able to put 100% of herself into the production of this very personal epic graphic novel. I began relating Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life to works like Persepolis and Maus. The artwork, strange at first, becomes a part of the language and the fluidity of communication at that point really makes the work sing.
I should mention though, that the series has an NES game motif and can be a bit confusing to people who grew up in caves or without any connection to pop culture of the last 20-30 years.
Finally, I was able to pick up my own copy of volume 1. Oni printed it like a manga tankobon, which suits me just fine since i have shelves of untranslated manga i use for artistic reference. My only complaint is that its exactly 20% more costly than I think it should be. However, you can get a great price on the set on Amazon or borrow from your local free library.
