Lost At Sea

by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Once again, I'm a little surprised at where some of the gaps in my comics reading lie.  You would think, after getting so much enjoyment out of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series, that I would have snapped up Lost At Sea ages ago.  But no, for whatever reason, I waited until now.

Lost At Sea is O'Malley's first published work, and it is a very different beast than Scott Pilgrim.  Where that comic's charm lay in its humour, this is a much darker comic, although still structured around a likeable young person.

Raleigh is an eighteen year old woman who feels completely soulless and adrift in life.  She traveling with three other people by car from California to Canada (presumably somewhere in BC).  The other people - two guys and a girl - went to the same private high school as her, but are not really her friends.  Raleigh doesn't really have friends.  She's still mourning the fact that her best friend moved away in middle school, and she hasn't really taken the time to develop a new one in the intervening years.

Instead, she prefers to just sit around and examine her own feelings of alienation.  She's managed to convince herself that she doesn't have a soul, thinking that perhaps her mother sold it away in exchange for commercial success.

I know that I'm making this book sound like a whiny self-involved teenage existentialist novel, and in some ways it is, but because it's done by O'Malley, there is a lot of charm in this comic.  The other characters are pretty likeable, and there is something about a road trip story that draws me in every time.  As the story progresses, and Raleigh confronts some of her fears, I found myself drawn further and further into the story.

O'Malley's art looks much the same as it does in Scott Pilgrim, but without any of the jokey or cute self-awareness of that title.  He shows a wide range of emotions in his art, and paces the story very nicely.

This book is a nice companion to novels like The Outsiders, or to comics like Ross Campbell's Wet Moon.  It's good stuff.

Scott Prilgrim Vs. The World

Directed by Edgar Wright

I went in to this movie with very high expectations - I felt like the bar was going to be high for this project from the start, and hearing lots of positive reviews and good word of mouth for the last week only heightened my anticipation, and I'm very happy to say that I was not disappointed.

This is exactly what a comics adaption should be.  The story remained faithful to the comics, while effectively condensing Bryan Lee O'Malley's sprawling plot, and preserving the unique aesthetic he crafted for the books.  The plot is familiar - Scott dates Knives; Scott meets Ramona; Scott dumps Knives; Scott has to fight Ramona's Seven Evil Exes, but there is enough difference to the film that it never becomes too predictable or boring for someone who has already read the story.

The cute visual tricks help make the movie stand out.  Sound effects appear on the screen, and the video game homages work better in the film than they did on paper.  There are some very cool CGI tricks, but they never overwhelm the story the way they do in most blockbuster movies.

The movie is cast perfectly.  Michael Cera does a great Scott, but I found that Mary Elizabeth Winstead was perfect as Ramona Flowers.  She managed the aloofness and indescribable cool of Ramona wonderfully.  The other supporting characters were chosen well, especially Alison Pill as Kim Pine, Johnny Simmons as Young Neil, and Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, the source of many of the best laughs in the movie.

One aspect of the film that I particularly loved was the way in which it portrayed Toronto as a magical, beautiful city.  The scenes in places like the steps to Casa Loma, or along the streets where everyone seemed to live (the Annex?) looked fantastic, and it's always cool to see places you've been hanging out all your life up on the screen.

Out of necessity, the movie does cut a number of scenes from the book, and so things felt a lot more rushed than I would have expected.  The quick succession of battles with evil exes didn't give Scott and Ramona much time to really bond, and so I missed seeing many of my favourite moments from the comics in the movies.  I also felt that Envy Adam's character arc was cut short, but I understand why that had to be the case.

Anthony Lane, writing in the New Yorker, suggested that the movie might be as 'vaporous' as the word 'love' that Knives exhales in Scott's direction, but I don't agree.  I expect that this movie will find a solid life for itself on DVD and Blu-Ray, as it is the type of movie that may have a small audience, but I imagine they will be a dedicated one.

Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour

by Bryan Lee O'Malley

I don't think there's ever been a comics series quite like Scott Pilgrim.  Bryan Lee O'Malley's story blends so many genres - the plot is really a romantic comedy/kung fu action/science fiction/coming of age/screwball, with roots in anime, comics, and video games, not to mention indie rock.  Reading over that description, it sounds like it should be an absolute mess, but instead, it's brilliant, and works on every level.

Scott has been working his way through fighting the 7 Evil Exes of his new girlfriend Ramona Flowers, and has only one left to battle - Gideon Graves, the most powerful and insidious of them all.  The problem is that Ramona has left, and Scott is even more lost than usual.  He's not coping with her absence, and is instead making a pest of himself for all the other women that have been in his life.  It's not until he finally faces Gideon that things start to improve, except that Gideon is a powerful foe, who owns a new nightclub at the corner of Bathurst and Queen.

The demands of plot meant that this volume has a little more going on in it than the previous five, leaving less time for some of the more charming character moments that this series is based on.  They're still there, it's just that they didn't seem as frequent, especially in the latter half of the book.  It is the supporting cast, and their exasperated way of dealing with Scott, that makes me love this series.

Another thing that I find I get a lot of pleasure out of is the way in which O'Malley portrays Toronto.  I love my city, and it looks great in this comic. I love recognizing where scenes are taking place, even when they aren't labeled (like when Scott and Wallace are shopping at Pages, an excellent and much-missed bookstore that closed down this year).  The sense of place is strong in this book, and it gives the characters a grounding that I sometimes find missing in comics where the scenery is treated as generic.

Scott Pilgrim is probably going to be attracting more and more attention over the next couple of months, leading up to the release of the movie, and this attention is richly deserved.  When I started reading the title (after the third volume was released - I know I came to it late), I never would have expected that it would become the type of book that would have midnight sales drawing in thousands of people (I'm sure that the Beguiling - my comic store - was the only store to get that type of turnout, but it's amazing still).

It's a credit to O'Malley that in the face of so much attention and expectation, he stayed true to his artistic vision, and has completed a truly historical comics series.  If you've never read Scott Pilgrim, go get the first book right now.

Peng

by Corey Lewis

Corey Lewis is a creator about whom I can't seem to make up my mind. His work is on the same level as Brandon Graham and James Stokoe, both of whom I love, but seems to be missing some secret ingredient that those two cartoonists share. I think the problem might be that he doesn't imbue much life into his characters.

Peng is a good example of this. It's a comic book about an Advanced Kickball tournament. Four teams have made it to the 'final four', and we are given a quick overview of each of these teams, before diving straight into the action of the different games. The elimination games conclude, and we jump straight into the final game between two of the teams. There is very little time, amid the frenetic art and exciting gameplay, to get to know (and by extension, care about) anyone.

It's too bad too, because the comic is otherwise pretty cool. The game of advanced kickball is neat. There are all sorts of special moves with kung-fu inspired names, and a variety of unique players. Sharknife shows up, as does Scott Pilgrim in a short, and inspired, cameo role.

Lewis's art is pretty crazy - it's all over the map and hard to understand. I think that his work needs to be seen in colour to be appreciated, as his recent Longshot story in Marvel's Strange Tales anthology was much easier to understand. Still, this is an entertaining read.

Scott Pilgrim Full-Colour Odds & Ends 2008

by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Basically, this is the Free Scott Pilgrim FCBD special from a few years ago, with a few other short pieces, but it does satisfy my need for Scott Pilgrim awesomeness.

It's great to see Scott in colour, although I would have assumed his 4 1/2 t-shirt was blue....

There's not much to say about this really. If you are wanting to get someone into the series, this would be a good way of letting them sample it, and it does fill a need for completists and obsessives.

The watercolours by O'Malley are beautiful, and really capture the essences of the different characters.

In all, for $5, a little pricey, but a great TCAF find nonetheless.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe (vol. 5)

by Bryan Lee O'Malley

There's nothing quite like a new volume of Scott Pilgrim. It's one of those times of the year that people wait patiently for, all the more so because of it's unpredictability.

This volume is another fun installment in Scott's life. He's 24 now, and determined to be the best 24 year old he can be, but he's still having problems remembering things, or recognizing people like his younger brother. He's also having some problems with the band and Ramona, who has found out that he cheated on Knives Chau with her. Also in this volume, he fights #9 and #10 of the 11 Evil Exes of Ramona Flowers, as well as some robots.

While this is a great comic, it didn't seem to have as many 'video game-isms' as the previous books, nor did it add much to the Scott Pilgrim staple of such things as traveling through sub-space, nor the hilarious realization of Volume 4 that not all Second Cups are the same place, connected by inter-dimensional doorways.

As well, it seemed like this issue wasn't as grounded in Toronto as the previous volumes were. There were still references to places like Sneaky Dee's, and a construction site at Queen and Bathurst, where "an old building is being gutted and turned into something else," but I didn't feel like the city was itself a character in the book, as it has been in previous volumes, which staged fights in the Reference Library and Honest Ed's. Perhaps that's only a sensitivity I feel because I like seeing my home town get portrayed so well.

Reading this issue, I started to think about the impending Scott Pilgrim movie. I honestly don't know if the charm of this title can translate onto the big screen. So much of what makes this comic work is that it IS a comic. Ramona's glowing head can't look anything other than cheesy when digitized. I will most likely end up seeing the film, but I know that nothing can replace the quality of this book.

Now there's nothing to do but what for another unspecified number of months before the sixth and final volume comes out....