Books: Scott Pilgrim

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Scott Pilgrim
Vol 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
By Bryan Lee O'Malley
2004




Available now from Islington Libraries
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Scott Pilgrim
Vol 2: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
By Bryan Lee O'Malley
2005




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Scott Pilgrim
Vol 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
By Bryan Lee O'Malley
2006




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Scott Pilgrim
Vol 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
By Bryan Lee O'Malley
2007




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Scott Pilgrim
Vol 5: Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe
By Bryan Lee O'Malley
2008




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Scott Pilgrim
Vol 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour
By Bryan Lee O'Malley
2010




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I think this is just going to be babbling. So - yeah - sorry for that. But hey - I'm passionate.

Sometimes people get confused between form and content - about the ways a story can be told and what the story is actually - you know - about. Take Citizen Kane as an example (it doesn't matter if you haven't seen it - it's more just something that everything can agree that is (well supposed to be at least) good - "the greatest film ever made" etc). The reasons it's good isn't because it's about newspaper magnates and it's isn't because everyone loves a story about a sled: it's good because of how it's filmed and how it's edited and how it's all put together (this is where I should probably admit that I haven't actually seen it). It's not about the content - it's about the form (got it?). Now - of course - with most things the form and the content are pretty closely intwined - if you hear that a film is a weepy romantic drama - well - you can close your eyes and already imagine what the actors are going to look like, what kind of camera shots they're going to use and the songs that'll play on the soundtrack. Ditto action films, cartoons based on fairytales and pretty much anything starring Adam Sandler etc etc etc. But just because something seems like it's a rule - that doesn't mean that there aren't exceptions. Just because you know what the story's about - that doesn't mean that you know how that story is going to be told. And just because we live in a world of Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy, Big Daddy, Click and You Don't Mess with the Zohan - that doesn't mean that sometimes something can't come along in a Citizen Kane-like fashion and innovate and revolutionize and excite you in all sorts of strange and wonderful and sexy ways.

All of this is my massively roundabout way of saying: forget what you think you know about Scott Pilgrim. Forget that all the volumes look so small and the artwork makes it seem like it's for kids. The things which are fantastic and artful and deep and profound and beautiful don't always come in the packages you expect them to (flashback to 1941: "I don't want to go and see a film about some media guy") and - I don't care what anyone says - Scott Pilgrim trumps pretty much any other comic out there for depth, experimentation and human observation not forgetting - goddamn it - heart.

There's an old phrase that says: happiness writes in white. What that means is that it's much easier to write about sad and miserable things than to say why you love something (which would explain why a lot of the longest posts I've written have been about book I really can't stand: while the books that I really cherish have left me a little more tongue-tied). Scott Pilgrim was one of the first books that I wrote about on this blog and basically all I could manage was saying how awesome it was. Quote: "This comic is - for a lack of two better words - Totally. Awesome. And awesome in so so so diverse and seperate ways. Go on: The artwork is economical and precise like a laser. The dialogue crackles with jokes and truthiness. And the characters each buzz in different pitches and keys each fully formed and with their own seperate agendas. But beyond all that this comic is a joy for the way it absolutely encapsulates the mindset of a post-teen young twenty-something. It's like virtual reality for the soul. You will know every small over-and under-side of Scott Pilgrim that there is to know. You will feel the awesome-ness of his highs and declarations of birthday supremacy all the way down to the car-crushing lows - and the sound, taste and smell of his obliterated heart conducted through the careful use of telephones and glorius panel construction. Is this making sense? No? Well... I don't care. The six volumes also include: robot fights, recipe ideas, movie stars on fire, coins and enough love and romance to power the world and light up the darkest hollowest hearts in creation. In sum: READ THIS BOOK."

Since writing that I've always wanted to come back to this post and explain exactly why these five comics made such an impact on me and why I believe that they are so - i dunno - special. And seeing how we're fast coming up on the 300th book post I thought that maybe now would be the right time. 

Altho I've kind of made it a bit of a policy to not mention any tie-in films of the books I write about on here (for this purist it would sully a discussion of Watchmen to mention Zack Snyder's thing in the same space) I've gotta admit that the only reason I even bothered picking up a copy in the first place is because I heard that Edgar Wright was making a film based on it (this must have been back in 2008/2009). And for that at least I'm grateful.[1] But then talking about what makes this book so important to me - it's another director that I feel like I should talk about: Terrence Malick.

Have you seen The Tree of Life? If you watch the trailer you'll get a fairly decent idea of what it's like. Lots of gorgeous cinematography and hushed voice narration combining to make mediative statements about human existence and our place in the world. I mean - yeah - it's a beautiful as watching angels playing frisbee (or whatever) but - I guess because it's reaching for EPIC and IMPORTANT truths about LIFE, THE UNIVERSE and EVERYTHING it doesn't have many laughs. And even tho I was really looking for a long time to seeing it (watch The Thin Red Line and then we'll talk): coming out of the cinema I felt a little bit - unsatisfied somehow. Like an inch inside me had been failed to be scratched properly. Talking it over with my friends afterwards I came to the conclusion that - if you want to make a grand masterpiece that - I dunno - tells it like it is about how life works then it doesn't make sense to be solemn about it - which is what The Tree of Life is - if nothing else: it's very serious.  

And that was one of things that I love so much about Scott Pilgrim - because - hey (but don't get me wrong - it's a comic that underneath everything is very serious about everything that it does) but it also manages the difficult trick of underlying all of it's hidden seriousness with lots and lots and lots of really great jokes [2].

One of the other things I love about Scott Pilgrim brings us back to Watchmen again. Now for lots of people - Watchmen is the graphic novel for the ages: there is none finer and nothing else that does as much or proudly struts around in such a clever fashion and I pretty much agree with every positive thing anyone ever says about it. And yet... (let me see if I can make this clear...) the thing about Watchmen is that it's very much of it's time (and hey - what's not - right? [3]): in that the only way to really make a 'serious' comic book that people would read was to make it about superheroes (obviously yeah - Maus - but shut up I'm trying to make somekind of a point): and the only way to really play with structure and form and all the rest of it was to mess around with the superhero archetype because hey - in terms of comics - that's really all there was (to bring back Maus again: as fine and important and all the rest it is: once you get past the main conceit - it's not really a very experimental book - no?). What's so great about Scott Pilgrim (for me at least) is that it feels like (and - hey - who cares if this is factually correct - it's all about the way it feels right?) the first comic book to be able to play around with (and 'play' is the word for making sense of these books in that they're all about messing around and playing with the limits and boundaries of what supposedly can't be done in a comic book - or to flip that the other way: to show all the myriad [4] possibilties to lie with the precise use of words and pictures): if Watchmen was about superheroes then - for this reader - Scott Pilgrim is about showing you just all the crazy stuff you can do with comics: and that they don't have to be rigid and contained - but rather can be wild and free and expressive and all about capturing fleeting moments and stolen glances [5].     

But - hey - I haven't actually read it since just before I saw the film: so maybe I should go and revisit it and then write something a little bit more considered (altho just between me and you - I do have a little bit of the fear that it won't be as good as I remember it). But still: it's comic book heaven and one of the most delightful (and heart-breaking) things that I think I've ever had the pleasure to experience in my life.

So - if you get the chance - check it out.

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[1] Altho the film left me feeling all sorts of disappointed when it came out. Main reasons for that I guess were the fact that it was always a bit of a fools errand to try and squeeze six books into one film (I reckon he's much much better with films which he gets to design from the bottom up and - seeing how there's so many characters (beyond even all the evil exs) it seems like maybe it would have been better as a six part TV series or something) and also - yes yes - as much as I love Arrested Development and all the rest: Michael Cera was mis-cast has the lovable dopey lead. (Altho that does raise the eternal question of: who would make a good Scott Pilgrim?)

[2] And seeing how so much of this has been about films - I'd say that the one film that Scott Pilgrim really reminds me of in the way that it uses jokes to break your heart is Charlie Kaufman's demented and brilliant Synecdoche, New York. Both of which remind of this David Foster Wallace essay: Laughing with Kafka. (Oh: mentioning David Foster Wallace in a footnote! What do I win?): Best example relevant: Todd Ingram's special powers compare and contrast with the scene in the Kaufman film where Caden is forced to speak German to his dying daughter. That stuff's funny - but it also hits home.

[3] Indeed: "It's funny, but certain faces seem to go in and out of style. You look at old photographs and everybody has a certain look to them, almost as if they're related. Look at pictures from ten years later and you can see that there's a new kind of face starting to predominate and that he old faces are fading away and vanishing, never to be seen again."

[4] Ha - "Myriad" is a word I've often heard used but never knew what it came from: apparently it's the classical Greek word for the number 10,000 - which sounds about right for the number of possibitlies that these books blow apart. 

[5] I know that for comic book fans/geeks it's all about the opposition between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison (which for those of you we don't know is kinda Blur vs. Oasis, Coke vs. Pepsi, Star Trek vs. Star Wars blood-feuds in that for people that aren't already emotionally invested - it's kinda hard to tell the difference) - but I'd say that there's a better comprassion to be made between Alan Moore and Scott Pilgrim (and dangnamit - I know I should replace the word "Scott Pilgrim" with "Bryan Lee O'Malley" - but it's just that I feel like I really know and intuit and have a deep spiritual connection with Scott Pilgrim the book, the character, the idea - while it feels like Bryan Lee O'Malley is just the guy who just happened to write it - which I guess could be taken as some sort of strange compliment? (I hope) but yeah - sorry Bryan!) But yeah: with Alan Moore on the one side representing comics as being slowly structured and careful built and expertly put together intricate machines while Scott Pilgrim (on the other side - playing computer games) is comics as feeling (because it's about feeling and - obviously obviously - Scott Pilgrim is probably one of the most intricately and obsessively put together comics out there) like everything just feel together in just the right way.

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Links: Focused Totality Review of Vol 1 and 2 / Focused Totality Review of Vol 3, Sean T Collins Review of Vol 4 / Vol 5 / Vol 6, Savage Critic Review of Vol 5, Warren Peace Sings The Blues Review of Vol 5, iFanboy Review of Vol 5, And Another iFanboy Review of Vol 5, Comics Alliance Review of Vol 6, The Comics Journal Review of Vol 6, NY Times Review of Vol 6, Comic Book Resources Review of Vol 6, iFanboy Review of Vol 6, Mindless Ones Article, Comics Alliance Interview.

Further reading: Lost at Sea, Solanin, I Kill Giants, Blankets, Orc Stain, Powers, The Umbrella Academy, Domu, 100 Bullets, xkcd, Anya's Ghost, The Perry Bible Fellowship.

All comments welcome.