Scott Pilgrim

Article originally written in French by Solo the CyberpunK and translated in English by DarkEvil.
See original here.

"Geek's choice!"

Scott Pilgrim, it's 6 volumes of about 170-180 pages each sold at about a dozen dollars. 5 are already out and the last one is supposed to come out at the end of July 2010.

Scott is a 23 years old guy, unemployed, living with his roommate and friend Wallace in a small apartment (they don't have a kitchen table). He's part of a band, Sex Bob-Omb, which pretty much sucks... The story begins (not at the very beginning) when Scott, who's constantly dreaming of a girl, finally meets her in real life. They begin to know each other and she tells him that if he wants to officially date her, he'll have to fight her 7 ex-boyfriends.

Totally absurd and funny. It's pretty funny and not because of actual "jokes", but the situations themselves. It's because the characters are well developed and become important to us. Nothing seems forced, it's well written like I said.

Scott Pilgrim is really made for geeks: a lot of references to video games that I found really funny. The story can be followed, but it isn't all that linear. There are some detours I should say, but we can still follow it with no problems at all: I wouldn't say that there's a main plot or sustained suspense. It's a relaxing comfortable read, the types of which you'll devour in a single night only to search for the next volume by the next morning.

I like the characters very much. Scott is a rather ordinary guy to which we relate easily. Ramona (the girl) is also very likeable, even though she gives this mission to Scott: she's not the typical jealous girlfriend, hypocritical and hateful that we see (too) often in this type of story.

The drawings are only in black and white, with the few grayscales panels (like many mangas). They're very simple, but they do their job pretty well of giving the emotions of the characters to the reader.

After reading the comic book, you'll be waiting for the movie just like I am. The comic has a style and scenario easily translatable to movie format, which should give an extraordinary result.

The trailers are very convincing: just as much as the comic book, this movie is MADE for geeks. I still recommend you read the comic before (as you know, more complete and less condensed scenario).