After hearing so much good word of mouth about this series, I finally decided to pick up the first volume and after reading it I'm genuinely surprised that I heard such good things. I thought this comic was trying way too hard the entire time to be "cool," with it's geeky references and even the physical layout of the comic, with "stats" for characters when they're introduced, etc. It didn't offer much on the emotional front either of what it's like to be a young twenty-something, it wasn't that witty, the art was too anime-esque for my taste. Anyway, I'm thoroughly disappointed with the $11 I spent on this, damn.
So what do you guys think? Love it? Hate it? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
I'm surprised you didn't like it. I absolutely loved it. I totally bought into it's coolness and I love Scott as a character. I find I know people who are like the characters in the book and I know a couple of Scott Pilgrim's. I love the numerous video game references as well
My only big complaint is the price. The books cost a lot considering they are such a quick read
Like Will, I have thoroughly enjoyed this series. The only thing that was hard for me to buy into at first, was the manga art style. But now that I have been reading it for quite a while, that style seems to best suit this particular book. imo.
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"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Another thing that totally took me out of the story was the end of the first volume. Throughout the whole thing, it's fairly grounded in reality and then, all of the sudden, Scott gets into a superhuman-esque battle with one of the ex-boyfriends. That whole aspect was totally lame and not consistent with the rest of the story.
I mean if you guys like it... then I GUESS that's cool, but I just can't bring myself to understand why any it's any better than any other mediocre thing out there.
Most of the geeky references I feel are pretty contrived, like the writer's just like "Do you like me yet? Is this hip?" /rant. For now.
Well that's fair enough, in your case it's just a matter of opinion.
Oh and I will add that the end of the first volume, totally agree, ends in such a weird and wacky fashion, that if you don't like it, you certainly won't like the other volumes.
I think what lends itself to it's popularity somewhat is the blend of genres. It's not quite sure if it wants to be a light hearted manga story, a teen bopper drama or an off the wall, action packed adventure, so it ends up being a bit of all of them. There's a reference in there for a large range of demographics and chances are if you like one, you'll probably enjoy the other.
But, hey, obviously opinion is a major contributing factor.
I understand what you're saying about the kind of abrupt switch at the end of the first volume.
When first reading the first volume, I thought it was going to be your standard "slice-of-life" indie-music obsessed comic, with an interesting art choice. I kind of freaked out at the awesomeness that Scott was also going to be fighting robots, vegan-powers, and ninjas. All good things to fight.
"Pilgrim" just has such an infectious verve- it's continually hilarious, it's super energetic, and, at time, genuinely moving. I mean, feeling like your girlfriend left you because you're not "cool" enough, trying to figure out what you're going to do with your life, and battling dudes with swords are all things we can relate to.
The art DRAMATICALLY improves between volumes, too, which is nice. You can see the evolution of the technique.
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Apr 28th, 2009 11:59 PM
