Growing up, I've unintentionally grown fond of all things Canadian. Canadian bands (Broken Social Scene, Stars, The Unicorns), Canadian women (Evangeline Lilly, Rachel McAdams, Sarah Chalke), and more recently, Canadian comics. The Scott Pilgrim series comes from Canadian cartoonist Bryan Lee O'Malley, and is published by Oni Press. The basis of the story is of a 24 year old Canadian bassist who falls in love with an American delivery girl, but in order to date her, he must fight and defeat her 7 evil ex-boyfriends. The latest trade book that came out is the 5th volume (shown in the picture). The writing is cleverly humorous and develops the story without long weary dialogue. It's very cute at points and unique in the way that it shows the relationships that each of the characters have with one another. The fights between Scott and the ex-boyfriends are fun to read and hyperstylized in the manga fashion that it kind of pokes fun at the way Japanese comics do combat. Speaking of which, all of the art is also done in the manga fashion but it's also very unique to O'Malley's style. The characters are drawn in a simple style in some panels and in great detail in others. All in all, this series is very much a bridge between the Western comics and Japanese manga. Reading each volume is an enjoyable experience unlike any other. When I picked up the first two volumes for the first time, I read through both of them non-stop. The books are about 200 pages each and run for $11.95.
Jordan
