Welcome back to the Scott Pilgrim Book Club. We’re psyching ourselves up for Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour (out now!) and the Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World movie (due out August 13) by discussing each volume of the series over the course of six weeks. This week, Douglas Wolk, Graeme McMillan, Mike Williams, Evan Narcisse and Christine Lim are talking about volume 4, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together. (And read our comments on volume 1 here! And Volume 2 here! And volume 3 here!)
DOUGLAS: I’m pretty sure this is my favorite volume of the series. It’s definitely the funniest, not least because O’Malley flicks in so many magnificent gags they can fly past you if you’re not paying attention: “half-ninja,” the pee meter, “show me how!,” the explanatory caption at the bottom of a grocery receipt, “Hey, you know your hair?,” Knives shrugging “I dunno, he was speaking Chinese or something,” Scott suddenly realizing how dehydrated he is and begging Wallace for water… Even when O’Malley leans a little harder on a joke, it’s worth it. This volume has my pick for the funniest line in the whole series: “Scott, I’m sad that I’m about to die, but I’m not sad that you’re about to die. I just want you to know that.” (I always heard Kim Pine’s voice in my head as a slightly more grown-up version of Peppermint Patty from the Peanuts animated cartoons; I’m delighted that that seems to be roughly how Alison Pill is playing her.)
MIKE: Uh-oh, I don’t think I get the half-ninja joke.
DOUGLAS: “Ninja” is a marker of a skill set, not an identity or a heritage (how can you be a “half-ninja”?). But Roxy’s really indignant about being precise with issues of identity: don’t call her a ninja, she’s a half-ninja! And I hope you’re happy with your 2.4 kids!
(More on Techland: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Book Club: Volume 1)
Speaking of which: this volume’s also all about the L word and the other L word, isn’t it? From the hilarious “let us never speak of this again” moment onward, “Gets it Together” emphasizes that this is as gay-friendly as ostensibly straight romantic comedies ever get. (I also love the fact that Wallace is moving in with Mobile, but seems to be dating other people too.) Stephen Stills doesn’t mind a bit that Joseph’s macking on him (and something seems to be going on behind that studio door); perhaps that’s why he’s looking down at his drink when Julie apologizes for being jealous of Lisa…
And we get a sense of both how deeply clueless Scott can be (via the constantly forgotten Jason Kim, who seems to have borrowed Scott McCloud’s shirt, as well as the birthday routine), and what’s actually okay about him. For Scott, “getting it together” is the same thing as leveling up–he realizes that he can deal with a job if he just thinks of it as another kind of system he can master. He’s slightly less of a callow jerk than he was a few volumes ago, and not only because he gains the flaming katana of love: he actually handles a difficult emotional situation with Lisa as well as anyone could be expected to, given that he seems to get drunk on pizza. (Okay, I identify with Scott’s non-drinking a little too much.)
MIKE: He’s less of a jerk? He seems the same as he’s always been. In fact I’m not sure I see what Scott’s redeeming qualities are? He’s a burden on his friends. It’s been alluded that he’s not a stellar bassist. He has a history of bad breakups and two timing. He can barely take care of himself. He’s a grown infant. He matures some in this volume with the love proclamation and the job (which he gets fired from for a day or so), fine. Aside from that it’s same ol’.
EVAN: Nah, Mike, Scott’s definitely growing. In the scenes where Lisa’s coming on to him, I think old Scott would’ve gone there. Not necessarily out of a Vegan Todd sense of entitlement, but more because he just kinda went along with things that felt good without thinking of consequences.
(More on Techland: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Book Club: Volume 2)
DOUGLAS: Also, I need to mention my favorite bit of character work in this book: slightly drunk 17-year-old Knives Chau, such a huge Sex Bob-Omb fan–and giving them so much cathexis–that Stephen’s song means much more to her than it does to him.
This is the happy-ending volume of the series–it begins and ends with “don’t you wish this moment could last forever?,” and the next-to-last scene is everybody happily sharing a meal. If it’s not quite a wedding, it’s the next best thing. But there are two books still to go, and this one hints at how everything is about to go to hell in volume 5. Young Neil is quietly getting nudged out of the Sex Bob-Omb circle. Ramona has been with Scott for months, and she’s still not telling him a lot of important things (as he levels up, he says he doesn’t care about why she’s not answering his questions; maybe he should!). And Scott’s seen something awful inside Ramona’s head (where, incidentally, she’s wearing a Merge Records T-shirt). Dine and laugh while you can, people.
MIKE: Were the first ten or so pages in color for everyone else? I thought maybe I had a special copy or something. It really made all the difference, didn’t it? Loved those pages. I often have to make sure I know which girl is talking (Kim/Ramona/Lisa). Color made it easy.
(More on Techland: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World International Trailer Is Seriously Rad)
DOUGLAS: Yeah, the color section at the front is just terrific-looking. Not a lot of accomplished black-and-white cartoonists make the transition to color easily (or vice versa), but this part just jumps out and radiates happy summertime beach vibes.
MIKE: As far as Ramona goes, she might have fewer redeeming qualities than Scott. She’s not mysterious, she’s hiding her past. She’s hypocritical (“We didn’t make out much”) when it comes to cheating, and it sounds like she’s broken more hearts than even Scott. I don’t know, maybe these two are perfect for each other.
(More on Techland: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Book Club: Volume 3)
CHRISTINE: Kim, Ramona and Lisa’s hairstyles are way too similar in this volume. Was this done on purpose? I learned in some playwriting class that if you name characters similiarly –e.g. Melody and Melanie — it had better be meaningful. O’Malley can clearly draw women with other shapes, sizes and features (Stacey, Roxanne [who is not a boy]). Are the women in Scott’s life supposed to serve as mirrors/foils to one another?
We’ve seen panels interact with the story and characters — via meta comments, explanations, character bios — but I feel like Vol. 5 gives characters the power to interact with the panels. Two instances in particular come to mind.
1. Halfway through the book, when Roxie is introduced as “ROXANNE RICHTER. The 4th evil ex-boyfriend,” Roxanne snarls in response, “I’m not a boy!”
2. In Scott’s second Zelda-style dream, Roxanne seems to slash through panels, attacking not just Scott as a person, but Scott as a character in this strip.
In a sense, Roxie gets it together by exhibiting this control over her situations and yet, after all is said and done, she totally dies.
MIKE: The characters have on several occasions referenced the volumes themselves. O’Malley doesn’t go overboard with fourth-wall-breaking, but it certainly happens from time to time.
DOUGLAS: See also that excellent interview with O’Malley over at Comics Alliance today (warning! spoilers for vol. 6!): the narrative voice isn’t really an omniscient narrator so much as it is Scott’s view of his own life.
GRAEME: This really is the “Everything comes together to give everyone false hope” volume, isn’t it? It continues the growth of Scott that started, really, in volume 3, but he’s clearly not there yet. It’s a book about the way people think that everything will be great at the start of a new relationship, filled with excitement and optimism at having overcome the obstacles so far, but not entirely aware of what’s still to come (I love Ramona’s “I’m not telling” when Scott finally admits that he doesn’t know her age, and asks her. Yes, it’s a punchline, but it’s also a clue about everything that’s about to happen in the next volume). But, as much as there may be all manner of happy endings to see (and color! Which, as Mike says, really does make all the difference – I wonder if we’ll end up with a colorized series of reissues, a la Bone, at some point?), there’s something less satisfying about Gets It Together than Vs. The Infinite Sadness for me, and I’m not quite sure why.
(Also fun, in terms of foreshadowing: Lisa smoking, and Scott’s confusion over that, because it challenges his moral absolute about smoking being inherently evil.)
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Artwise, this is the sharpest book yet – don’t I say that every time? Sorry, readers – and Bryan’s art starts to take a blocky stylization that reminds me more than anything of Jamie Hewlett’s Gorillaz work. But the visuals have also started to clarify in other ways: There’s a lot more space, and the eye flows more easily from panel to panel, without details that aren’t necessary there to clutter things up. As Scott’s world becomes more complicated, the art simplifies and becomes much clearer.
EVAN: Yeah, going back to this one, I was shocked how much I was reminded of Tank Girl.
I know everyone mentioned Vol. 3 as the one where they thought everything gelled for them, but I held off on jumping on that bandwagon because I clearly remember Gets It Together being the one where things, um, came together technically. The character guide at the beginning isn’t just helpful; it also shows how O’Malley nailed the visual differentiators for characters that got confused with each other in the first few volumes. Maybe it was the color making my eyes pop out or how amazingly more assured O’Malley’s line became or the comedic timing feeling much sharper. I dunno. [Slight personal note: the Washington Post blurb on the back is from a capsule review I wrote way back when. When I saw that, I pulled a sword out of MY chest.]
(More on Techland: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Fashion Tips)
Seriously, though, if Infinite Sadness was the one where stuff got mature, then Gets It Together is the one where stuff gets nuanced. Like Graeme noted with her smoking, Lisa’s the kind of ambiguous character that probably most mirrors real life so far in the Pilgrim-verse. She’s not easily classifiable as strictly good or bad. Similarly, Knives’ dad starts out being this ominous threat, but all he really needs is an honest account of what happened between Knives and Scott. And Scott’s hazy Superman III moment where he glimpses his d-bag doppelganger signifies the whole “good and bad in everybody” epiphany. Related to those bits of nuance, the spectre of fully realized, grown-up possibility looms large in this one. From Kim’s moving out to Stephen Stills’ “You have a home studio?!!” to Scott’s “I can do anything!! Just give me a chance!”, the characters are realizing that they can have so much more than their precious little lives. These beats contribute to the feel-good vibe of the book immensely.
And maybe because of the heat wave riff running through the book, this is the sexiest of the Pilgrim books, too. It’s giggle-inducing to think of sexual allure in something so cartoony, but the scene where Lisa’s giving Scott the ol’ come hither ripples with tension.
Also, the fights in this one flow much more smoothly than the ones before.
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