I became aware of Scott Pilgrim due to my daughter being a fan. The books and DVD were around the house, so eventually I watched the movie. It is a fun piece of escapism, mixing normal life with fantasy elements. So I thought I would read the books too.
The booked were created by Canadian artist Bryan Lee O'Malley. They are regular paperback size and the actually story is all in black and white. Apparently there are colour editions out there too.
Scott is a slacker in Toronto who is in a band and dating a younger girl and not working. He lives with his gay friend Wallace. His life changes when mysterious delivery girl Ramona Flowers comes into his life. He wants to win her love, but first he has to defeat her 'evil exes'. These battles crop up across the books leading to a confrontation with the enigmatic Gideon.
The battles are epic conflicts in the style of video games and there are lots of game elements with defeated opponents turning into coins. There are also doorways to other worlds and other impossible things. Some fights involve swords, but nobody remarks much on how unusual this might seem.
The style is very cartoony and I expect it has some influences from Japanese manga. It varies between talky sequences and the action, which is very dynamic. The scenes with the band are cool. O'Malley is a musician, so he can use his experience to make them realistic.
I think this might be considered a young adult comic, but I think older readers can enjoy it too. I certainly did. It makes a change to read a comic that is not just about superheros.
The movie takes the basic theme and certain scenes from the comic, but misses out a lot. It is fun though and feels like watching a game at times even though it is real people. The action is very much comic style. As is often the case the trailer may give away a little too much.
I have some other graphic novels queued up to read that I will report on in due course.
Happy reading.