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I received a lot of fun books, CDs, and DVDs for Christmas this year. I’ll try and post about things as I finish them. N. gave me volumes 1-4 of Brian Lee O’Malley’s comic series Scott Pilgrim. I just finished reading them and enjoyed them a lot. They’re a really fun read. Basically, it’s an action/romance: Scott meets his dream girl and has to fight her evil exes to win the privilege of dating her. It’s drawn in the style of Japanese manga. The narration incorporates some post-modern touches such as characters’ awareness that they’re in a comic and video game conventions (during fights characters level up and gain extra lives), etc… that work well with the story. Over all, the books are fun and sweet without being too precious.
One person who did NOT like Scott Pilgrim was N.’s grandpa. Grandpa was in town last week and stayed with us for a couple of days. I had left volume 2 on the kitchen table and one morning Grandpa started reading it over his breakfast of FiberOne.
Grandpa didn’t think that the story made a lot of sense (perhaps due to his beginning with volume 2), and he was scandalized by the book’s only love scene. I believe his exact words were “she was in her panties and he was patting her nudie bottom!”
I think it was this page he stopped at.
So, Grandpa=not a Scott Pilgrim fan. Stay tuned next week for his take on Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut!
It’s a whole new world for Grandpa every time he stays with you guys! 🙂
Ha-ha. I know! Last time he was here we watched Flight of the Conchords with him on HBO, which he seemed to enjoy.
LOL LOL LOL this is too funny!!! Aww poor grandpa, now he could probably say he’s seen everything there is to see in life!! Looks like a fun comic book. I’ve been really buried in reading ‘Memoires of a Geisha,’ I’m almost done with a book, and it’s caused me to lose sleep and be late for work everyday!!
It’s not drawn in the style of Japanese manga. It’s a graphic novel. I think that’s something a lot of people assume–that if a comic is in a black-and-white-book-form, then it’s “manga” or “like manga”.
It’s a graphic novel. There are TONS of American graphic novels. A lot of indie, especially.
Canadian. I meant Canadian. And/or western.
Hi Anonymous. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. But I’m still going to have to say that the visual style of Scott Pilgrim is definitely influenced by manga. Among other things, the big-eyes, small mouth style of the characters’ faces and the super exagerated expressions and/or poses that O’Malley uses point to a manga-influence.
And I also know that just because a graphic novel is printed in black and white doesn’t mean it’s manga. I would never say that Blankets or Persepolis are manga-influenced.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment.