Scott Pilgrim is 23 years old and has spent the past year trying to get over his last girlfriend. It looks like he is finally going to get over her when he starts dating a high school girl named Knives Chau. So... Scott is kind of a loser. The entire graphic novel is written in a video game style, with the specifics of characters listed as they appear on the pages. Scott is in a band and when they play the pages look eerily like the video game Rock Band. The entire book is basically Scott trying to progress to the next level, which includes finding out who this rollerblading, Amazon delivery girl Ramona Flowers is. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
is basically a celebration of all things twenty-something and the culture that surrounds that generation. The best character is definitely Wallace Wells, Scott's gay roommate, and even he kind of turns into a jerk at one point in the book (and he only gets a 7.5 rating at the beginning, so we know he isn't perfect). Bryan Lee O'Malley does a great job of summing up their relationship in two panels that show their apartment. Everything in the apartment has a label on it and we quickly find out that most of the stuff in there is Wallace's and Scott just uses it, including Wallace's socks.
Which is probably why I really, really loved it. The language was spot on and not gluttonous like the language in Juno. All of the characters are pretty unlikeable, Scott is a loser, Ramona is kind of an oddball, Knives is gullible teenager, and most of Scott's friends are mean, but as twenty-year-old you recognize that most of the people in your life fall into these categories too. It doesn't have anything to do with hipster culture, as many have said, because, let's face it, if Scott Pilgrim was a hipster he wouldn't have any friends and he would have much better taste in clothes. Bryan Lee O'Malley's drawing style is also not hipster enough to create a graphic novel about hipsters. It's not manga but it's not what we typically see from comic book artists today. It's almost more like a webcomic style--which I was totally on board with.
The book moves rather quickly and I suppose at time it might be a little too fast. If you didn't understand the language or world O'Malley assumes you understand the book would probably be difficult to get through. I can't speak to that, as I did understand it. If you're a college student I don't see how you wouldn't understand it, at least a little bit. I really can't speak more highly of the first volume in this series, so I will just end by review and hope you all give Scott Pilgrim a try.
I give Scott Pilgrim an A.
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