The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.
Some time back, I checked out the fourth Scott Pilgrim book; well, I’m finally caught up, having borrowed the fifth and penultimate book in Bryan Lee O’Malley’s saga, Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe.
I find myself of two minds about this latest installment. On one hand, it’s clearly well done: smartly written; laid out perfectly; graphically creative; upbeat, poppy and fun while still being emotional and intelligent. O’Malley skillfully moves the sillier aspects to the background, as Scott battles Ramona’s evil ex-boyfriends’ robots mostly off-panel, leaving the emotional crux of the saga in the forefront. Ramona and Kim carry large swathes of the narrative, and O’Malley exhibits a strong understanding of their emotional turmoil.
The big fun of Scott Pilgrim is how O’Malley keeps the emotional maturation of his protagonists on center stage while packing the fringes of the panels with power ups, fourth wall-busting jokes, genre exploitation and clever visual gags that make for an exciting adventure-comedy. Intelligence and action under one cover, what an astounding concept!
My second thought is simply that after five volumes, I feel a little apathetic about the too-slow awakening maturity of Scott Pilgrim. Everything’s well done in each book, but there is a sense that everything could’ve been just done by this point. The final fifteen pages of this book only enhanced the meandering quality, giving us only the highlight of Scott’s apology to Kim amid a sea of wandering and loneliness.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe stands as another testament to the quality of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s writing and wit, and it’s definitely a series worth your time. I must admit to looking forward to it all ending, but I’m also looking forward to my library getting the final book when it comes out, because I definitely want to see how O’Malley wraps this all up.
