I’m A Scottaholic
The new Scott Pilgrim book is totally genius!
In case you’ve not encountered Scott Pilgrim before, it’s a graphic novel in 6 parts (the latest being part 4) about the bassist in an excellently named Toronto band called Sex Bob-omb.
The computer game references are all through the book, with Scott himself having many attributes of a computer game character (examples: he gains experience points when he gets a job, various attributes of Scott are expressed as power bars, and he gets freaked out when he sees a glowing image of his head floating in mid air – it’s a 1 up!).
The plot revolves around Scott’s band and his love life - significantly he has to fight and defeat his girlfriend’s 7 evil exes in the books, with every book (or level, as I like to see them) ending in one of these battles.
Like the other books it’s full of genuinely funny touches of humour and I love the way it gives computer game properties to a story set in the real world (essentially the opposite of most computer games, which increasingly try to mimic the properties of the real world as processor power increases ). We go to computer games for escapism damn it! I don’t care if a racoon tail inexplicably allows me to fly… it’s fun, and not bogged down in realism!
I think this is one of the strengths of Scott Pilgrim too, it’s not bogged down in unnecessary realism. As soon as an author allows aspects of computer games into the world, it becomes a much funner place, especially when it whisks the characters between the two.
Example: in the first book, the evil ex explodes in a shower of coins when he’s defeated, Scott picks them up and complains that it’s not enough for the bus home.
Genius.
