Most people would recognize Scott Pilgrim as in the movie ‘Scott Pilgrim vs The World’. In fact, the movie was based on a six-volume comic series. It’s such an enigma, his name reverbarates in the passing nooks of popular culture. I simply had to read it and understand why people talk about this multi-media work.
It’s very much an action superhero comic, but the stakes are rooted in the personal world of the characters, not in a grand world-saving adventure. This makes the story far more compelling, because there is less certainty that everything will go so well with the character’s relationships than that the world will be saved, which is never in question. That said, the characters problems weren’t interesting, often feeling like some bland gossip.
The urban-magic videogame-inspired setting didn’t make sense to me either. I think ‘world-building’ is silly and often more entertaining for a writer than a reader, but this environment was just confused, being whatever the plot wants it to be for the moment. Some parts feel contrived, like the part leading up to when Scott stays with the blonde actor (I forget her name) and Kim stays at Ramona’s; a thoroughly predictable and offensively boring subplot. The deus-ex machina of Todd and the ‘vegan police’ (making a meta-joke that you are using a deus ex machina is no excuse!) which was telegraphed by a very obviously jammed-in setup.
But far and beyond everything, I think the biggest detractor from the comics is the humor. It’s typical of what you see in web-comics, and that never sits well with me. A joke gets something between a small chuckle to a cringe from me.
I’ve noticed for a lot of people, they love or hate the series based on how they feel about it’s unlikable characters. I wager that handling main characters who act morally reprehensible and selfish is a difficult task, especially if you’re supposed to like them anyway. An unlikable character should not be confused with the flawed character; Botchan is a flawed character, but he is admirable and we could deign to be like him in some ways. Humbert Humbert is unlikable and is supposed to be, yet we read Lolita anyway and judge it on other merits. With these comparisons, we see the problem: we feel we are supposed to root for these unlikable characters, but we don’t.
It didn’t bother me much, but then in retrospect, I imagined Scott as much younger than he was supposed to be. I’d understand if he was like, 17 or something. Really, the way he acts is quite gross and embarrassing for a 23 year old, and that’s probably why people dislike him so much. Is there anybody in this series we can look on as a good character we care for? Not at all.
I can’t honestly point to anything I particularly liked about Scott Pilgrim. I only bothered to finish it because it’s so easy to blast through comic pages, and my patience for it to turn and become better. But I felt there was not even any payoff to the end.