MEGA EXCLUSIVE EARLY REVIEW


Ok, so because I'm a little bit cooler than most people, I got this next, HIGHLY-ANTICIPATED (by us), comic a little bit early. The fact that I was only ducking into Gosh Comics to escape the harsh winds of Winter, and randomly stumbled upon the stacks and stacks of advance release copies just, I think, adds to my cool. Shut up. It's cool. Stuff happening randomly is cool. Oh, whatever.

SCOTT PILGRIM: GETS IT TOGETHER (Volume 4) - Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni)

This is awesome. It's been a long wait between volumes (over a YEAR), but it turned out to be totally worth it. This is my favourite catalogue of Scott Pilgrim's escapades to date. In this volume of Scott Pilgrim, he actually gets it together, it's not even just a clever name. He sorts himself out a little while maintaing his cutesy shambolic charm that we've come to love (and relate to). This book is also more complicated than the last 3. It's not just a straight-forward little tale of boy trying to be awesome in his own dorky way, but now it has layers and texture and all sorts of those things which flesh out stories and turn them from things which simply allow geeks to read them and say "awesome" into things which evoke a few "hmm"s scattered in there as well. HMM, AWESOME? That's right! I'm so glad you're getting it! This book has heart. Hell, this book is about heart. And levelling up. Those positive aspects of story progression, however, also signal a slight change of pace for O'Malley. The funnies are less immediate. Don't get me wrong, there are still quite a few idiosyncratic-LOLs (the page which shows how Scott's brain reacts to his realisation about Ramona's fourth evil EX is particularly amazing), but they're not the central focus of the book. Relationships maybe are.* And that's not to say that this is all mopey and emo, because it's quite the opposite. Sure, all the main characters have floppy fringes, but SO DID YOUR DAD AND HE STILL HAD SEX WITH YOUR MUM AND THAT'S WHERE YOU CAME FROM SO STOP BITCHING. All in all, this comic made me smile. I read it on the crapper in the Queen Mary Arts Building, and let me tell you, those art kids do not smell good in their pants-parts, so making me smile was quite an accomplishment.

But hey, don't take my word for it. If you check us out tomorrow, Tom B will be giving you his take on this little gem. Come back for that, internet. What else have you got to do? ...

Love,
Tom W

*TANGENT!
Relationships, man. I'm telling you. They're pretty confusing. I mean, one minute you're strolling along and find a tenner on the ground, so you pick it up and scream "FUCK YEAH!" in a stranger's face and text your girlfriend to tell her about it, and the next minute you're on MAURY because you may or may not have a baby with a girl called Piggy, who happens to be related to both your girlfriend and you. Sexy? SOMETIMES. And that's how complicated relationships are.