August 18, 2004, was a fateful day in Toronto’s pop culture history.
Not that you would have known it at the time. Quietly, without much fanfare, indie comic publisher Oni Press released the first in what would ultimately come to be six volumes depicting the trials and tribulations of maddeningly irresponsible Hogtown bassist/slacker Scott Pilgrim, a dude named after a Plumtree song.
Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life sold decently, this first volume introducing readers to a lovingly recreated Toronto where the (now-defunct) Club Rockit plays host to a battle of the bands which transforms into an actual battle, and where young love blossoms on a long TTC streetcar ride.
London, Ontario’s Bryan Lee O’Malley had had moderate success as a comic creator before Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life arrived that summer of 2004. Lost at Sea (2003), his first original graphic novel, was published – also by Oni – to positive coverage in the indie press, and he had illustrated the work of other writers, such as Jen Van Meter’s Hopeless Savages (2002).
Scott Pilgrim – and Scott Pilgrim – was born out of O’Malley’s own experiences coming up in the Toronto hipster scene, with Pilgrim and friends devised as a (loving) ode to all the geek, mildly obnoxious, Green Room-frequenting creative types O’Malley hung out with. (One of the characters in Scott Pilgrim is clearly supposed to be Joey Comeau, the Canadian co-creator of long-running web-comic A Softer World.)
Pilgrim’s six-volume saga ran from 2004-2010, picking up enough steam to spin off in a whirlwind of directions, including Edgar Wright’s cult-classic film adaptation, a fantastic side-scrolling video game, several board games, and, most recently, a TV adaptation that functions simultaneously as sequel, remake, and reboot.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Scott Pilgrim’s arrival, Oni Press has released a big, beautiful new box-set – both the original black-and-white and updated colour versions are available – for all you Sex Bob-omb fans out there.
The first thing you can’t help but notice about the Scott Pilgrim 20th box set is, well, the box, which looks an awful lot like the PlayStation 2 packaging. It’s an appropriate, knowing choice, for a series which is suffused with video game references. (For what it’s worth, the PS2, released in 2000, was a fixture of dorm rooms everywhere the year Pilgrim debuted.)
Scott Pilgrim’s gaming references are legion, and include everything from the name of Scott’s band Sex Bob-omb (a Super Mario reference), to the Sonic-inspired first panel of the fourth volume. The off-kilter version of Toronto which Scott inhabits is also seemingly governed by video game logic: Scott’s overarching quest to defeat “Seven Evil Exes” is clearly a riff on video game boss fights, while one of the best jokes in the series sees Scott “get a life” by nabbing a 1-Up icon.
Pilgrim is not just a succession of geeky references, however. This is a dramatic, action-packed, and habitually laugh-out-loud funny story, in which Scott’s (rather understandable) pursuit of the girl of his literal dreams gets him into one ridiculous situation after another, including repeat trips through an interdimensional passageway which looks an awful lot like Super Mario Bros. 2. So yes, sure, Scott Pilgrim is extremely geeky, but at its heart, it’s a relationship story: one man’s quest to get the girl, in spite of everything stacked up against him. (The movie’s title, vs. the World, is borrowed from Volume 2, but it’s worth noting that by Volume 5 we’re talking Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe.)
Guardian readers should also know that Scott Pilgrim is the great pop culture love letter to Toronto. You can barely turn the page without encountering an extremely Toronto-specific reference, whether it’s the frequent visits to Second Cup and Pizza Pizza; Scott slowly losing his mind while browsing Honest Ed’s; or the plethora of real-world bars and concert venues Sex Bob-omb performs at, including Lee’s Palace, El Mocambo, and the Rivoli.
Open up your faux-PS2, and you’re in for a treat with the 20th Anniversary, whether this is your first foray into Pilgrim world or, like me, you’re a returning fan. Highlights of the collection include:
- All six original volumes in hardcover format with new cover art by O’Malley;
- A separate “making of” volume which combines O’Malley’s concept art and sketches with a (seemingly complete) collection of all the random one-off Scott Pilgrim “guest stories” that appeared in non-Pilgrim books; and
- A bunch of awesome swag, including recreations of original promotional material, stickers, and posters. (The collection sadly does not include a reprint of my beloved Toronto Comic Arts Festival Scott Pilgrim poster, which I scored a few years back at the Toronto Reference Library.)
The best part of the collection is obviously the new hard-bound editions. We’re partial to the colourized versions, which only debuted in 2012 after the series ended, but purists will want to stick to the original black-and-white. Revisiting Pilgrim again (and I’ve done that a lot over the years), it completely holds up: Scott is just as annoying albeit inexplicably loveable; his supporting cast – Knives Chau, Kim Pine, Ramona Flowers, and the rest – are all great and memorable characters. Most importantly, the series is just so funny. (I love the sequence where O’Malley puts the guitar tabs for “Scott’s terrible band’s terrible song” directly on the page, so “you too can play along at home.”)
Those who only know Pilgrim from the movie or TV series will be delighted at the amount of additional detail that never made it to the screen. Characters are more fleshed out, with folks like bandmates Kim (“your drummer is a girl?!”) Pine and Stephen Stills given their own mini-narrative arcs. There are jokes which only work on the page, like Stephen’s extremely detailed shepherd’s pie recipe, which consumes multiple comic book panels. Probably my favourite comic-exclusive moment is the insane sword fight that plays out in the atrium of the Toronto Reference Library. (How I wish Edgar Wright had gotten it together to film that.)
Obviously, for Pilgrim diehards, this is a must-buy. If you’re new to the series, or only know it from the movie/TV series, this is absolutely the definitive way to read it. The extras are worth the price of admission alone, while the new cover-art and newly “remastered” interior art (whether we’re talking black-and-white or colour) is the best these comics have ever looked.
So, uh, wanna make out?
***
The Scott Pilgrim 20th Anniversary Box Set is available for purchase at Oni Press and in your Local Comic Shop.
Interested readers should also check out the incredibly well-maintained Scott Pilgrim wiki, which I relied upon to refresh my memory while writing this article.
