Scott Pilgrim is 23 years old, in a not very successful band, and dating a 17-year-old high school girl who adores him. He lives in a tiny one room flat with his gay room mate, who owns most of the stuff in said flat. He keeps having weird dreams about this girl with brightly coloured hair who Rollerblades through whatever he happens to be dreaming about. One day at the Toronto library, he sees the girl in real life, and at a party, he discovers her name. Ramona Flowers.
Scott promptly orders something from Amazon.ca, just so Ramona can deliver it to his door, and asks her out on a date, conveniently forgetting about his adoring high school girlfriend. Ramona is reluctant to accept, but eventually does. Soon after, Scott discovers that in order to be with Ramona, he will have to fight her seven evil ex-boyfriends, each in more and more spectacular fashion. In volume 2, he finally has the good graces to break up with Knives Chau, who is not exactly delighted when she runs into Ramona at the library, and discovers Scott's careless treatment of her. At the end of volume 2, Scott has defeated two of Ramona's exes, but his life is about to get more complicated when he realizes that not only is his ex-girlfriend back in town with her very successful band, but the guy she dumped Scott for, is also one of Ramona's exes.
With the movie already out in the US and UK, and due for release here in Norway at the start of October, I decided to check what this Scott Pilgrim comic is all about. Mark, my husband, claims that as far as he's aware, almost everyone but him loves it. I don't quite know if I love it yet, but I did really enjoy the first two volumes, and have ordered the remaining four from the Book Depository already. Scott is an idiot, and a bit of a careless douche, and it's not cool that he cheats on the totally adorable Knives with Ramona (who to be fair, is not so pleased when she realizes he did so). Jobless and aimless, I'm pretty sure the reader is meant to think Scott is a bit of a pathetic loser, but the supporting characters are all very entertaining, and if you can get behind all the classic computer game references and suspend your disbelief that adversaries turn into coins after fights, then it's a fun little book, and I'm looking forward to seeing if Scott grows into a more likable character, or if everyone around him, from his roommate to his exes to Ramona, will continue to be too good for him.
