Review: Scott Pilgrim in his Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Comic digest, 247 pages
Published 2010
Acquired January 2012
Read September 2012

Scott Pilgrim in his Finest Hour
by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Contrary to what the whole Internet seems to think, this book is called Scott Pilgrim in his Finest Hour according to the title page, not Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour. (Worldcat gets it right, of course. Go librarians.) This is the complicatedest of the Scott Pilgrim books, and though I can't quite parse the metaphorical significance of what happens as well as I could in the previous volumes, everything explodes nicely in the end. There's a lot of good stuff here; "IT WAS HORRIBLE FOR EVERYONE AND THAT INCLUDES YOU" is probably one of the best medium-based gags the series does, and those last few pages are great.

Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Comic digest, 179 pages
Published 2009
Acquired January 2012
Read August 2012

Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe
by Bryan Lee O'Malley

This one's good too. I like the insights we're finally starting to get into Ramona, though she's maybe still a little bit too much Manic Pixie Dream Girl. "You're just another evil ex-boyfriend waiting to happen" maybe says more about her than Scott. Also: Scott fights robots, and the use of page borders in the last twenty pages is very adept.

Review: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Comic digest, 206 pages
Published 2007
Acquired January 2012
Read August 2012

Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
by Bryan Lee O'Malley

More Scott Pilgrim! More jokes! This one even has some color, which is nice.  I think Kim Pines is my favorite. The videogame logic world continues to delight. "That must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!" Scott really does get it together in this one in a lot of ways, which makes some of the movement in the last two feel a little redundant.

Review: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Comic digest, n.pag
Published 2006
Acquired January 2012
Read August 2012

Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
by Bryan Lee O'Malley

This is another volume of Scott Pilgrim, with all that that entails. I think the jokes about veganism might make Todd the funnest of the evil ex-boyfriends that Scott has to face. Scott has to grow up, but in the meantime I'll take this.

Grandmother vs. Scott Pilgrim, round two

Comic digest, n.pag.
Published 2005
Acquired January 2012
Read March 2012

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

by Bryan Lee O'Malley

The thing I enjoy about Scott Pilgrim (other than the excellently-chosen captions) is that is takes place in a videogame world.  Fighting other people is a perfectly normal activity, as is them turning into piles of coins when defeated.  I enjoyed the flashback about Scott's high school battles-- everyone acts like a student being kidnapped by a rival school is a completely plausible occurrence.

Poor Knives Chau.

Grandmother vs. Scott Pilgrim, round one

Comic digest, n.pag.
Published 2004
Acquired January 2012
Read March 2012

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

by Bryan Lee O'Malley

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.