Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

My favorite thing about this book is that, while I don't particularly like Scott Pilgrim himself, I am pretty sure that the narrative itself doesn't like him, either.  The book is peppered with captions that mock him, such as the panel showing his apartment with the owner of each object labeled-- and they all belong to his (cool gay) roommate.  Or when he finally gets to kiss Ramona Flowers, object of his desire, there's an inset of him rocking out on the guitar and a giant "NICE ONE, SCOTT! NOW TURN THE PAGE."  I don't really care about Scott and Ramona's relationship, but I laughed all the way through anyway.

It's been dang near 20 years since I first read this and probably 10ish since my last re-read. I wanted to re-read this series before I watched the new Netfilx series and I was wondering (concerned?) about how it was going to hold up. I'm happy to say it holds up wonderfully!

O'Malley really captures the experience of a very specific mid-2000s subculture. Re-reading Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life made me incredibly nostalgic for my listless, directionless mid-twenties. A strange post 9-11 era where young adults could instinctively tell it's all downhill from here, so we might as well enjoy the first few years of our cultural freefall. This is also one of the first pieces of popular media that took video games & "internet culture" show more seriously. I know this series has gotten a reputation of being "hey, remember this?" type humor, but I don't think that's very accurate. All of the jokes feel in universe and un-forced, and the vast majority still land today.

Re-reading 'Scott Pilgrim' also reminded me how much I enjoy likeable dirtbags. Both Scott and Ramona are clearly going through some issues, and those issues sometimes involve taking advantage of others, but both are very amicable characters. I've seen reviews saying Scott's a jerk, and while I may not disagree, I'll argue he's a likable jerk. Too much of modern American media, especially stuff targeted toward a YA audience, spends too much time ensuring their audience that their protagonists aren't problematic, but I'll always appreciate a hero that learns the lesson of being a good person is an active effort and not just a passive state of being.

I'm not entirely sure how this series would land for modern 20 somethings, but it's been a huge influence on my personal tastes and it's definitely a snapshot of its era. It's also a ton of fun! show less

http://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/2012/04/review-of-scott-pilgrim-by-bryan-lee....

There are spoilers here.

From here
Reading Bryan Lee O'Malley's six Scott Pilgrim books (Precious Little Life, vs. the World, & the Infinite Sadness, Gets It Together, vs. the Universe, Finest Hour) has been on my to-do list for a number of years, and they moved into my "read very soon" stack when I read and enjoyed Lost at Sea back in January.

Scott Pilgrim and his friends inhabit a world of magic realism, where their otherwise normal lives are occasionally interrupted by video game style fighting, 1-ups, and intrusions into their dreams. I think of it as a digital-age twist on Watchmen. Where Moore asks, "what would superheroes be like in real life," show more O'Malley pushes at "what would happen if a 23-year-old slacker handled his problems like a character from Street Fighter 2?"

I really enjoyed watching Scott struggle to grow up. He doesn't know what to do with his life, he doesn't know how to be a reliable friend, and he certainly doesn't know how to behave in a relationship. This, of course, doesn't stop him from believing that he is awesome. I especially the moment in the 6th book when he realizes that the way he remembers himself is not how others remember him, when he's forced to confront the fact that his creation myth (how he learned to fight, how he became friends with Kim by beating up a bully and rescuing her) is a lie he's told himself so many times that he believes it. Kim forces him to remember that the kid he beat up was just another nerd, and more importantly, was a person. The world is not divided into friends and enemies; that approach only works in video games and (some lesser) comic books.

O'Malley's artwork is a real treat. Simple, clean lined characters inhabit a richly detailed world. The fullness of the world was reiterated over and over again. Pop-up balloons frequently appear with notes on who's who, what items are laying in the background, what action a character is in the midst of performing. Again, this emphasized the video game spirit of the books, playing to our expectation of unlockable tools and skills, while also serving as a way to make the world more textured (and more dork-tastic).

The framing of the panels was another tastefully handled reminder of just how big Scott Pilgrim's world really is. In comics, framing works just like the framing of a shot on television; it tells us where our attention should focus. Throughout Scott Pilgrim, O'Malley's framing skewed off center, so that the characters (and sometimes even their speech bubbles) would spill off the frame and off the page. What we are given is truly a "window on the world" in the classic sense, allowing us to see but also limiting what we can see. O'Malley's deft framing was one of the first things that stood out to me in Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, and I was thrilled and rewarded to see it continued throughout the series. show less

How can one describe Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life? Hipster-absurdist-arcade-kung-fu-musical? Whatever you want to call it, the book exudes coolness, and it’s not the pretentious brand of hipster coolness. It’s a goofy, kind of stupid and fun coolness.

Scott, 23-years-old, announces that he is dating a high school girl, Knives. He’s in a band and doesn’t have a job. He epitomizes the laid-back slacker mentality. His friends give him grief about the relationship, but before things get hot and heavy with Knives, Scott falls for Ramona, a rollerblading delivery girl. As the story progresses, the absurdity increases.

Both girls show up at the band’s show, which causes problems. The real problem, however, is that Ramona’s show more ex-boyfriend also shows up. He’s able to summon some kind of demon-girl fighters, and an arcade style kung-fu battle, partially set to a musical, breaks out. The premise for the rest of the series is established. Scott will have to fight Ramona’s seven ex-boyfriends if he truly loves her.

The story is a take on the classic medieval epic, but Bryan Lee O’Malley fills it with tributes to manga, retro arcade games, music, sit-coms, and slacker attitude. There is humor throughout. It’s a perfect mix of realism and absurdity. It’s just fun. show less

Scott Pilgrim is living a rock-bottom life. He shares a bed with his roommate, has no job, is in a crappy band, and has a fake relationship with a high school girl. But one day in his dreams, mystery girl Ramona Flowers passes through his head, and suddenly his life changes when he meets her in real life. Then, at a concert, the first of her evil exes drops in and attacks him, starting a long journey for Pilgrim as he must defeat all 7 of Ramona's exes.
If you've never watched the movie or anime, you're probably reading this summary thinking why I would ever read something like this. Yes, the premise is very dumb, but that's part of what makes it so great! I think this version of Scott is slightly better than the one in the movie so far show more (which is weird calling a character Michael Cera plays a complete total jerk, but it's true) but he doesn't come anywhere close to the anime cinnamon roll version of him. The best part about reading the graphic novel was the afterword where the author talked extensively about the background of writing the series and where he got all his inspiration. I saw a couple of posters that I definitely want for my room now, and it was just pretty cool to see the origins for one of my favorite movies. show less

This review is for all 4 issues.

It took a while for me to come to Scott Pilgrim-- several people whose opinion I value had recommended the series-- but once I did I was smitten.

In my opinion, the only series that fuses Western culture and interests with an art style influenced by Manga (all the while retaining a unique aesthetic). Scott Pilgrim is fun, frivolous, cool, goofy, thrilling, and all the while O'Malley manages to grow his characters with enough pathos to keep everything from becoming too absurd.

Music, comics, gamer, geek references abound, but never truly get in the way of a guy's quest to woo over the girl of his dreams...or, actually, the girl who uses his dreams as a shortcut during her workday...umm. Go read it to make show more sense of that last sentence. show less

Should not have revisited this one because it doesn't hit the same way it did years ago :')
The version I read had some extra background material I now regret reading. Apparently, the original pitch letter introduces Knives Chau as Scott's "desperately horny 17-year old girlfriend." I know that it's problematic in-universe too, but I'd have preferred "this guy is dating a minor because he never grew up" instead of this weird fetishy description. Especially since the author also admits to writing it semi-autobiographically? I'm so icked out by this?

I'm going to watch the Michael Cera classic and forget this ever happened.