Saturday 7 August 2010

"Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Year of Publication: 2004
Page Number: 168 pages
Genre: Graphic novel, comedy

Summary: Scott Pilgrim is an unemployed, 23 year old, who lives in Toronto with his sarcastic gay room-mate Wallace. Scott's main interests in life are playing bass in rubbish rock band Sex Bob-Omb, and his relationship with his 17 year old high school student girlfriend Knives Chau (although they don't really do anything other than gossip about her schoolfriends). However Scott's life is turned upside down when he meets dangerously cool, rollerblading delivery girl Ramona Flowers who he instantly falls for. However, to win Ramona's heart, he must first defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends.

Opinions: This book is the first in the six volume Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels (basically novel length comic books) from Canadian cartoonist Bryan Lee O'Malley. The book is an enjoyable and often hilarious account of slackers in love along with surreal elements and bizarre videogame style kung-fu action. The artwork is done in very simple black and white Japanese manga style which works well for the story. The book only serves as the first installment of the six part story, and as such it isn't really a stand-alone story, although it definitely made me want to check out the rest of them. Another thing to bear in mind is that it really won't take long at all to read the book because, like most graphic novels, it's a fairly easy and quick read. However, the book, which is full of references to videogames and slacker culture, is very funny, clever, silly and effortlessly cool.
A movie adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim series is due to be released in a couple of weeks directed by Edgar Wright and starring Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

2 comments:

  1. Really looking forward to reading this!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's definitely worth checking out! I've been really enjoying the second volume as well.

    ReplyDelete