Scott Pilgrim and Infinite Scrutiny: Part One

Hi internet! Missed you! The last two weeks without you in my life have been hard. I developed bad habits: A regular sleep pattern, catching up on my reading and generally being bright and cheery. Thank fuck that's all over.

I have a good reason for neglecting you however; I moved house (it went well, thanks for asking) and had to fix my PC after it had a tantrum; The hard drive had thrown it's juice carton at the processor and wasn't playing with the other components.

Now it's permanently in the naughty corner.

So I'm still wiped out mentally (at least I was when I started writing this). So lets try something new. A review!

Oh don't look at me like that. All I've been doing is packing and reading Scott Pilgrim for the twentieth time. This blog is all about me trying new stuff (aside from being a personal rant space and giving me the illusion of being productive). Expect faux sociological theories, a guide to tabletop RPG's and a painfully detailed description of my perfect pet (A Giant Schnauzer called Quincy after Quincy M.E.) at some point in the future. Hell, when I start getting some actual comments it's likely that I'll take a stab at being an agony uncle. Who better than a white male nerd in his mid-twenties to give advice?

Breaking up always hurts; have you tried telling the internet?

So it's either a review of Scott Pilgrim or this article becomes about the joy of putting shit in boxes.

What's that?

You want it to be about putting shit in boxes?

Well OK then! 

 

The Art of Packing 

The love child of disappointing sex and futile war.  

 

This long and exciting journey starts with choosing a box which is right for you. Don't be intimidated by all the choice, it takes years to become a box connoisseur and will come with practice. Take some time to watch the experts in the field. You'll notice they all have this frantic, agitated look about them; a hatred of life that is so endearing and soul destroying - try and emulate that.  I advise moving house a lot or working in a dead end job to really hone that thousand yard stare; if you start hating your life in the process, consider it a bonus! 

The box in it's natural environment, fighting over a mate.

Now for the box itself. Until you fourth year of packing you will only have to worry about the theory, but all that research will pay off the day you actually handle a box safely without cardboard cuts. If your under thirty have a grown up on hand to help you when things get confusing. There are many things to consider with a standard packing box; You have to take into account width, what you intend to transport in it (cutlery, Nazi gold, children), the material of the box (pro tip: cardboard is less likely to spontaneously combust compared to napalm.)

Remember a box is not just for Christmas, it's for moving house as well. But that's it. After you've moved you can chuck it out. Go on, I won't tell. I'm not even going to demand that you recycle it; though you should, else your just a bit of a tosser.

Now to decide what tape you want to use, the tape you use says a lot about one's personality...

...Want me to continue?

I'm not, because I'm pretty sure someone out there just screamed YES!!! while touching themselves inappropriately and this blog is not here to indulge any ones cardboard fetish but mine. So lets wipe away the metaphorical remains of a ravaged cardboard box from our collective guilty conscious and talk about something else.

Lets talk about Scott Pilgrim and why I'm a massive fan boy for it. As it is likely I will have another week long brain fart in the future, consider this is part one of an ongoing Scott Pilgrim analysis. Sure, this series has been covered by so many people that it seems kinda pointless to cover it some more... but that doesn't seem to stop anyone else on the net so why should I break from tradition?

 

Scott Pilgrim and Infinite Scrutiny.

Part one: The Review 

 

The original covers. The British covers are much less fancy.  Maybe they thought we'd spit out our tea in disgust at such flagrant flamboyance.

First, a primer for the uninitiated. Scott Pilgrim is a much loved series of six graphic novels released from 2004 to 2010 by Bryan Lee O'Malley, a man so talented at telling stories about twenty somethings going about their day it makes you wonder if he's some sort of artistic Jedi. These books picked up a huge cult following and became the popular face of the indie comic scene. Of course such a successful series spawned into other media like a multimedia Shub-Niggurath: A film in 2010 by the legendary Edgar Wright (We'll get to that minefield at a later date.) and an awesome video game on Xbox Live and Playstation Network also in 2010 (also to be covered later, but in a happier font).
 

The stage is Toronto. Slacker boy (Scott) meets mysterious girl (Ramona), is forced to fight her exes to win the right to date her (which she seems strangely OK with). He also has to deal with his own past with his own exes, currents and what-could-have-beens all at the same time. All this to a backdrop of a world that seems to casually accept the bleeding of videogames and anime into the world leading to a place where most nerds would give their hind teeth to live in.

This has led to me having a very unrealistic view of Canada and a burning desire to go there.

Scott Pilgrim is, for the most part, is a musical; if by musical you mean fighting bonanza (which I do) with slice of life drama/comedy thrown in for good measure. Though how the fights are set up you could be forgiven for believing everyone was about to start singing rather than throwing chairs. Where as most people just have to contended with being passive aggressive towards their current partner's exes, Scott is literally encouraged to whail on Ramona's exes and destroy them. The shout outs to many different games past and present without making it painfully obvious gives Scott Pilgrim so much nerd cool and is the main reason why it took off. 

"Oh Marrrrio! To display my irritation at this lactation I shall punch your scrunch!"

Aside from violence towards former lovers there's the story of Scott's band Sex Bob-omb, their friends and just the general trials and tribulations of life with little money and no prospects of advancing in life. This is something that O'Malley doesn't get near enough kudos for; he has captured what it is to be young and in either a dead end job or no job so well that I actually find it quite inspirational. It's an uplifting message that you don't need to be traditionally advancing in life to find happiness (at this point I'm probably reading far too much into this but judge for yourselves.)

This is where the my view probably differs from most others. The fight scenes are fun and bombastic, sure, but it's the more subtle turns the story takes that bring me back time and again. The time spent just hanging out with friends or those awkward conversations that you have with the love of your life while your half drunk. It's a great love story because it isn't simple. The relationship map is a glorious mess and that's exactly what real life is like. The relationships are fraught and no one is perfect which is the underling message I saw throughout the entire series.

And this is only half way through the series.

What makes Scott Pilgrim stand out for me as a series is the cast and their stories. You find yourself caring (and if that's not possible because you posses a heart of flint, then at least interested) in all of them, even side characters you only see once or twice are interesting. They oozes character from every panel - thanks to the double whammy of a really engaging script and memorable character design. Most of these stories are not conveniently wrapped up in front of the reader and are only discovered later as the main characters find out giving a natural flow to many of the stories.

We also get to see the characters just spend time together and hang out. Far too often the script just blitz through such scenes trying to get to the next big set piece or chasing the eternal goal of fulfilling a character arc, terrified we might loose attention and wonder off at the first sign of something shiny. For the low key moments it's the slower pace that is needed. If you have characters who are so entertaining just to watch then you could put them in a room watching paint dry and you'll have a captive audience.

Something I hope to prove in my new Podcast series: Huffing Paint Fumes with S. Wilder.

The art is great. A stylish cartoon aesthetic which refines as the books go on, finishing at an apex  in the sixth book looking so good you will want to ask it out. Part of what makes the art stand out is the attention to fashion (and this is coming from me, fashion is a Megadeth tshirt and jeans as far as I'm concerned). The only other artist who springs to mind in this sense is Adrian Alphonsa with his stint on Runaways (a great topic for another day).

The style is the workhorse that pulls off the comedic moments as well as the more mellow turns, with a style this malleable from detailed to cartoony there is always a possibility of such aesthetics only working in a handful of dramatic mood and it is testament to O'Malley's talent that it holds together from beginning to end. Whether you prefer the more proportioned art at the start of the series or at the nicely stylized end result is something of a personal preference (personally go for the less polished, more subtle look of the earlier books).

It's been five years man, what the hell are you pointing at?!

Change is a part of life and it is no different in Scott Pilgrim. There is no reset button and it pays off,  Compare it to the drawn out scenarios such as the Simpsons not being allowed to change in any meaningful way (One supporting character death per decade doesn't count in a series with over 500 episodes and counting). For a more relative but less popular example - look at many Shōnen Anime. A genre that shares the over the top fights and melodramatic moments, but looses any lasting effect by gleefully making entire series time wasters and actively looking to keep the statis quo (I'm looking at you Bleach).

This all comes together wonderfully and gives the series an impact that is hard to pull of. It's Scott Pilgrim's punchy-ness that gives the story such impact. It constructs the illusion to a real account of events rather than a three act story arc. You know, if everyone was capable of epic martial arts fights and inter-dimensional travel.

In Short: O'Malley could write John Major's biography and it would be AMAZING.

So far so good, but if the books were to get nothing but praise this review would be taken as seriously as a donkey on a unicycle. And being a sufferer of fanboy-itis allows one not only to clap like a trained seal but to endlessly nitpick as well.

The characters aren't for everyone and come off as being painfully hipster at points. In a defense for the books, they were being released before the advent of the modern hipster when we were all decrying Emo's (the fetal stage for many of today's hipsters). Most the characters have at least one scene of just being twat monkeys to each other (often many many more) and this doubly true for the two lead characters; often it seems that Scott and Ramona deserve each other for the shit they put the other through. This will turn the more idealistic of you away but for the rest of us it's a much more truthful telling of how relationships are.

A love story for the modern era: now with bickering scenes.

The characters all have some level of Buffy speak and though it isn't layered on too thickly, which I think actually adds to the setting (have you spoken to someone young in the past decade?). Though fair warning, if you have no time what so ever for like, that kinda thing, it will totally make you want to eat your own face in disgust. However, if that's your reaction to someone casually ruining the English language how are you still reading this blog while masticating your own eyes?

As mentioned above the books take time out to smell the flowers and make sure their getting plenty of vitamin C. However towards volumes 5 and 6 there seems to be less of what makes this fun and more plot points. As so often happens in many pieces that reveal in irrelevance the urge to tie up loose ends and get to the end of a project gets too much and there's nothing but housework before the end of the series. Which is fine in most shows but it doesn't work in series where a lot of the fun is watching even the unimportant events take place.

Vol. 2 takes time out to give a recipe while the characters chat amongst themselves. Seriously, I miss shit like this.

Now this all said I'm not one of those people who still decries that Tom Bomberdil was cut from the theatrical version of Lord of the Rings (well, not that much at any rate). It's understandable that projects need to get more focused and it isn't bad for it. It just turns Scott Pilgrim into a different beast from what it started as which is a shame. The same thing happened in the film Kamikaze Girls most of the film is a fun, bizarre train ride through the two leads lives but in the last half an hour it looses all sense of whimsy and just wraps up the plot. For many people this isn't a problem however (remember the disclaimer earlier: biased and subjective) However this leads into a problem with the last book in general.

It feels like there was too much to wrap up and conclude in just one book. Volume six, though beautifully drawn and entertaining, feels like it could have been so much more. It not bad mind you, far from it. Whats there is well done. It's just that it could have benefited by more time to finish up. Plot threads that could have easily had chapters to themselves end up getting a page or two. In a world so rich with detail and prior character development it's a real detraction on such a great series.

I've been needing to get this rant off my chest for years. Don't worry, it's nearly over.

However this probably wouldn't have been such a big deal if it wasn't for how Flanderized Scott himself feels as the series goes on reaching a horrifying peak in volume six. He goes from kinda dim to start with to so stupid he is one IQ point away from needing a sodding care assistant. There are plot reasons as to why (forgive my vagueness but I hate giving spoilers) but your mileage may vary on how much the plot point actually works for you. Of course no one actually notices their friend has become a drooling idiot over the course of a year until it is revealed why.

It's a far cry from the guy who has stupid moments but was actually charming enough to see why people like him, in a strange way he was quite relatable early in the series; even if you yourself don't have to fight off a legion of jealous exes and attract the majority of your preferred sex over the course of a year. A far cry from later volumes when he is the annoying friend people want to run over with a Robin Reliant.

I call her The Annihilation Bucket.

It's a shame, because if it wasn't for the Flanderization, plot relative or not, there would have been more pages in the final two books to give over to the other plot twists. The start of the final book is a montage of supporting characters with Scott being incredibly stupid to each one in turn because Wallace (his room mate) suggests that he should.

The message you may be getting is that O'Malley stopped making Scott Pilgrim and I'm not happy with this, which might possibly be my conclusion (I like to think I could have thought up something better though). O'Malley has been releasing colour editions of the books with tons of added extras and the art looks even more pretty. So pretty in fact I am seriously considering buying these reprints even though I own the originals to begin with like a nerdy magpie.

Even after that big whinge, every time I read through this series I get a little slower reading it. Because I don't want it to end and have to wait to be able to read it fresh again. A great read with one or two problematic questions raised which we'll get to in later installments of this Retrospective when I'm brave enough to start facing some of the more in depth discussions.

There's a good chance all that I've just said was to justify how in love I am with Kim Pine. Who, much to my disappointment, remains to be fictional.

For a story set in a country an ocean away, that I have no knowledge of, based around an often whiny and irritating protagonist (who I'm not sure why I like most of the time) I love these books; The Scott Pilgrim series, strangely, is the closest book to emulating what my life has been like with all it's complications and little set backs and minor victories. Except I can't punch someone in the face and get showered with praise and coins like Scott does. Instead I get punched in the face and ostracized for being a maniac. Which isn't nearly as valuable. Though, is probably just as entertaining for someone to watch.

That's the first part done! I'll add to this retrospect when I'm stumped for ideas again. Next time back to my opinion column.